Aydindril Burning
by A1066
Summary: Modern day AU: Kahlan is the Mayor of Aydindril with a boyfriend off to war and a mysterious stranger on her doorstep
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE: Each Bloom Brings A Longing Hope**

Kahlan Amnell was mayor of Aydindril, Montana, though she was young for the job (which she would be the first to admit). Her mother had been mayor, and her grandmother. People in Aydindril liked tradition, and an Amnell woman was traditionally mayor, ever since Kahlan's great great grandmother kicked out the town's brothel owner 150 years before when she arrived on the first train from the east. They were notorious for their mettle and serious interest in justice tempered with love and respect for duty. Kahlan was no different in this regard.

Kahlan Amnell was also very lonely, but it was not a new sensation for her. Rather, the loneliness that plagued her now was simply a new variation on a theme that had haunted her entire life. She had been a shy child before her mother died and her father took to drinking, but now when the afternoon light caught the facets of the little gem inset into the wedding ring she had carefully placed next to the sink while she did the dishes, the loneliness changed and shifted into a new shape that was swiftly becoming as familiar as the old one.

A sharp rap on the door startled her and she dropped the sponge into the sink of soapy water before drying her hands on a dish rag. Carefully, she tucked the loose strands of her long dark hair behind her ears. Every day she dreaded the sound of the door. She nearly succumbed to a panic attack each time a neighbor came to visit or the newspaper boy dropped off her morning edition. It was a fear that was common to military wives, and despite barely feeling like a wife, the fear of that particular knock on the door had buried itself deep inside her soul.

She must have been taking too long because whoever was at the door knocked again – loud and crisp – almost military, she feared. The military wouldn't stop by on a Saturday, though, surely? Still, she had been at her chores all day, so she paused to check her reflection in the entryway mirror. Kahlan was an uncommon beauty – dark hair, smooth skin and a charming dusting of freckles. She also possessed an exemplary figure that she kept up with daily jogging and the occasionally kick-boxing class. She surveyed it all in the mirror and caught none of her own loveliness, instead she focused on how ragged her comfortable cleaning clothes, sweatshirt and sweatpants, looked and how dark the circles under her eyes were becoming. Nothing to be done for it now, she mused, as a third, decidedly impatient knock drew her attention back to the door.

A particularly vivid scene had coalesced in Kahlan's imagination aided by months of nightmares and fretting. She knew, from movies of course, that the Army would send two men in crisp uniforms with hooded eyes and official expressions, who would give her a worn set of dog tags and express her country's gratitude and deepest sympathies. She would be stuck forever then with the ghost of a man she barely knew, haunted by unrealized possibilities. In one variation of the nightmare, the men give her Richard's severed head – they are the angels of death.

Whatever heart wrenching tableau Kahlan had thought to find behind her front door, it wasn't there. Instead there was a woman in faded blue jeans that clung to her thighs like a second skin and a rumpled t-shirt. Her blonde hair had the messy just-slept-on-the-bus look, which Kahlan reasoned, she probably had since it was the easiest way to Aydindril and she personally knew everyone that lived in town. This woman did not look like she lived in rural Montana – there was just that aura about her. It was so thick that Kahlan could nearly taste it, the hint of danger and violence that poured off of her. She stood, hip cocked and dull olive duffel over one shoulder, free hand raised and prepared to bring knuckles against wood again.

"Oh," Kahlan exhaled. A moment passed while her overactive mind caught up to reality. Not precisely the angels of death.

"Mrs Rahl?" the stranger asked, voice hinting at an accent Kahlan couldn't place.

She supposed she was "Mrs Rahl", though she had not gotten around to changing her name or accustoming herself to the sound of it. If Richard – When Richard returned, she would have to prioritize it. "Yes. Can I help you?" Kahlan stepped out on the wide porch, pushing open the screen door and letting it swing shut behind her. The loud smack of the slightly unsquared door hitting the edge of the frame caused the blonde to visibly flinch and reach for her waist. Her hand dropped quickly back to her side, failing to grasp whatever phantom she was reflexively searching for.

By way of reply, the blonde dropped the duffel off her shoulder and began to root through it. Not one much for words, Kahlan assumed. She found whatever she was looking for and offered it to Kahlan as she said in flat voice, "Richard sent me."

Kahlan took the proffered item – a printed photograph – and peered at it. Richard in desert fatigues, grinning widely through the dust, leaned against a Humvee next to the blonde woman. She was wearing a uniform too, but different from Richard's and Kahlan didn't recognize it from a movie. Searching for more explanation, she flipped the picture over. In careful script someone had written "Cypher and Mord-Sith 001" on the back.

"We were in Operation Seeker together." The woman secured her duffel again and tossed it up onto her shoulder. The bag looked full and presumably heavy, but the woman maneuvered it as if it were a feather. "He told me about you. Wanted me to come have a look at things out here since they were sending me to the States." She gestured around her as her, and the little yard in front of Kahlan's old Victorian and presumably the dusty town that lay beyond, full upper lip curled with a hint of contempt. "It doesn't look like much."

Kahlan had met Richard when he was blowing through Aydindril. He was from a small town in Idaho where he had been a logger until his dad died. He told her he was wandering east to see his grandfather in Ohio. He whispered it into her ear while they slow danced down at Denee's bar, and the ambiance and his voice made it seem like the grandest adventure. He must have seen something he liked, since he didn't make it any further. They spent two months skinnydipping in ponds, laying out under the stars, and pouring their hearts out to each other. Kahlan felt like the teenager she had never been and Richard was so sensitive and attentive. And then he had gotten the call. His unit was called up and being deployed. Three days before he left, he asked her to marry him. She stood in front of the clerk at the Courthouse with Denee as her witness, in an old pair of jeans. That night they made love (that's how she thought of the event) for the first and only time, and then he was gone, promising to love her across the miles and write frequently.

She knew that Richard wanted two kids, a boy and a girl. She knew he joined the National Guard instead of going to college, because he said it felt like he was protecting freedom. On his pancakes, he liked blueberry syrup instead of maple. But, she didn't know why he would send a jumpy Army buddy out to see her.

"Is he coming home?" She asked, folding her arms across her full chest and stepping back to lean against the screen door. The blonde was studying her with eyes so intent, that she reminded Kahlan of a wolf or a cougar.

"Not for a while." The movement of her lips only served to draw Kahlan's attention to the fact that the rest of the woman was very still. "That's why he sent me – to look after you."

Cara Mason – the name seemed almost too normal for the woman. Kahlan had decided that her accent, coupled with her full lips and nearly almond eyes made her too exotic to have a last name like Mason. In her mind, she decided that Mason must be a cover name or a code; Cara certainly wasn't American, after all, but she remained tight lipped about who exactly she was. Despite how uneasy Cara's presence made Kahlan feel, she was too kind to turn her out. There was no hotel in Aydindril and the closest motel was down the highway toward North Dakota several miles.

She gratefully retreated to the kitchen after showing Cara the spare bedroom to start dinner. Stirring the biscuit mix, chopping the vegetables for the salad and generally being domestic usually freed her mind to focus on the important things in the day – like what she would have to do at the office in the morning, or who she needed to call about the new zoning laws. Cara Mason dominated her thoughts instead, pushing out even her ever present concern about Richard.

The woman hadn't spoken again once Kahlan led her into the house. She looked around, studying everything with the same intensity that she had earlier trained on Kahlan, like she was memorizing the size of each room and the number of stairs so that she could retrace her steps in the dark. She tossed her duffel on the narrow guest bed and trailed her fingers over the edge of the dresser, all without saying anything else. So, Kahlan had left her to herself, glancing over her shoulder once on her way out. The woman did cut a fine figure, and a stab of jealousy shot through Kahlan as she considered how exactly Richard knew her.

The oven chimed, heated to the requisite 375 degrees for her biscuits and she carefully slid the tray inside. She had forgotten to ask if Cara like biscuits, or salad or pot roast. Maybe she didn't like any of it; maybe they didn't eat those kinds of things where she was from. She tossed the oven mitt onto the counter and sat down at the kitchen table to flip through the newspaper while she waited for dinner to be ready.

When the timer rang and Kahlan dropped the paper, she was startled nearly off of her chair. Cara was sitting across from her, arms folded over her chest and frighteningly still as was apparently her way. Kahlan hadn't heard her come down the stairs or sit down. Will power alone kept Kahlan from screaming in surprise.

"I'm going to have to put a bell on you," Kahlan muttered over her shoulder on her way to the oven. Cara didn't respond, so Kahlan tried to put the other woman's unnerving behavior out of her mind as she pulled the roast out and began preparing plates piled with food.

"I'm not a house cat," Cara responded dryly.

**CHAPTER TWO: I rode a tank, Held a general's rank, When the Blitzkrieg raged**

Richard was an absolute moron, Cara was sure of it - totally and completely convinced that Richard might have ridden the short bus to school every day. Aydindril was a pit, a backwater full of barely literate morons. She had decided on that fact about thirty seconds after stepping off the bus. Even the relief at finally being able to stretch her legs couldn't tamp down the growing sense of angry exasperation that overcame her as she surveyed what she could only presume was the town's main street. This was only a good location to hide by virtue of the fact that even her enemies would have a hard time stomaching the place long enough to kill her. Cities were more of Cara's style, bustling with people and surrounded by noise.

However, she had made a promise to Richard and since he had saved her life, just that once, she knew that honor required her to fulfill it. He had sent her here for her safety too, and she wasn't sure whether that was touching or aggravating. Aggravated was a more familiar emotion to her, so she consciously decided to feel that one as she made her way down Main Street and turned down a smaller road labeled "Elm". The large Victorian sat at the end of the lane, just like Richard had described, surrounded by a well trimmed lawn and sporting a wide porch trimmed in neat flower beds. All of it disgustingly as she expected. The sound of the screen door slamming nearly caused her to scream. For a nerve-shattering moment, it was the sound of a high-powered sniper rifle and Cara was back in the field, covered in her own gore and surrounded by death. Those moments were becoming increasingly frequent, set off by loud noises generally. The best way to handle it, she had found, was to simply take all of her feelings of any kind and squeeze them into a tiny ball before shoving it as far out of her conscious mind as she good. Emotions only made a soldier weak, except maybe lust and wrath, and weakness was the root of her current mental disturbance.

The woman who opened the door was not was she expected however. Of course Richard had told her the whole, long and unnecessarily involved story of how he had met Kahlan Amnell and fallen irrevocably in love with her in a matter of a few short weeks. He hadn't skimped on a single, sentimental detail despite Cara's obvious discomfort and distaste. From all of his endless blather about evenings spent laying on the hood of his old Ford while the moon rose and whispered declarations of love while they floated in the cool river, she had assumed that his new wife was a young, uncouth peasant-type woman – the kind she imagined shitty little towns like Aydindril were crawling with.

Well, Cara had to admit that Kahlan was, yes, young, but she was a woman not a girl as she had originally imagined her. Even dressed like a washer-woman, there was nothing peasant-like about her. Kahlan had a commanding presence, an air of power about her that Cara liked in a woman. It had something to do, she had finally pinpointed, with how she held her chin and the confident angle of her shoulders, which only served to enhance the visual appeal of her bosom. It was no mystery why Richard snapped her up as fast as he could, but Richard probably wasn't man enough to keep her.

The house itself was pedestrian and woefully unsecure, which she would have to set about remedying at the earliest possible opportunity. The room that Kahlan offered her was clean, tidy and what would probably be described by a native as "cozy". She tapped the walls, tested the floorboards, checked under the bed and finally after a great deal of searching found a loose slat at the back of the little closet. The space behind the wood was not large, barely big enough for the worn envelope of cash and the fully-loaded Agiel Class 2 Mord-Sith issue firearm she shoved into it. When the board was replaced there was no visible seam that would alert a careless eye to the presence of the cache behind.

She unpacked her duffel and settled the neatly folded clothes, corners military sharp, into the dresser. Who knew how long she would have to stay to discharge her duty to Richard. And if he never returned, if he died – Cara wasn't sure how to proceed in that scenario. She set the concern out of mind, carefully balled, she would handle that thorny issue if it arose. There were more important issues at hand.

Cara never tried to be quiet or still. These were qualities that had long since passed into instinct after years and years of harsh training. Whatever Kahlan was cooking vaguely smelled like something that she used to eat at the canteen. Not the ugly, loud American one where she had been forced to sit and listen to hours of Richard's prattle, but the quiet, well-appointed officers' canteen she had eaten at before she had defected – back when her decisions were simple and life was black and white. Duty, service, loyalty. Above all else: unquestioning obedience. She turned her mind from the memory. From there it would only be a short mental leap to the gore, the gun fire and the feeling of her own entrails leaking out of her

Her presence scared the other woman though, and she made a mental note to consciously create more noise in the future. She barely noticed whatever Kahlan said as she went to the oven, barely registered that she said something short in return. She was far to focused on the curve of Kahlan's ass as she bent to pull the pot roast out of the oven.

She had promised Richard to protect and take care of Kahlan, promised to make sure that no harm came to her. Ogling her wasn't causing harm, right?

Kahlan turned in early, muttering something about heading into the office at sunrise. Cara took the opportunity to prowl through the house again, running her fingers along the walls and checking the placement of windows. Mentally she calculated the amount of equipment she would need: a standard alarm system, motion detectors at the windows, better locks and reinforced doors. She toyed with whether bullet-proof glass would be worth the added expense. Bullet-proof glass might simply freak out Kahlan unnecessarily and Cara did not anticipate a long-range attack – that wasn't really her people's style.

When Kahlan went to work in the morning, she suggested that Cara check out the town, and offered to have lunch with her around noon, which left the blonde with what felt like a million hours to fill alone in the tiniest, backwater in the history of the world. She walked into town and made a lap of Main Street in roughly five minutes. There was a little grocery store with an attached gas station, a library housed in a double wide, city hall where Kahlan had explained that her office was and the bus stop. Set back on other smaller roads were a number of dingy houses, Kahlan's appeared to be the nicest in town – which didn't surprise her.

After wandering around for a few more moments aimlessly, reaching the outskirts of town in every compass direction, she headed back into downtown. With a heavy sigh, she finally settled on a visit to the library. Hopefully Aydindril would subscribe to Soldier of Fortune magazine. An hour and a half she trudged back out, sighing again. No, the Aydindril Public Library had every romance novel published in the 1980's, and it subscribed to a whole plethora of gardening and ranching magazines, but it did not have Soldier of Fortune or really anything that sounded interesting to read.

Finding Kahlan's office was pretty easy. There were only two hallways and three offices. Kahlan had a cute young secretary who manned a large cold-war era metal desk next to a glass paneled door that presumably opened onto the Mayor's office proper. The secretary caught Cara's eye and smiled shyly, "Welcome to the Mayor Amnell's office. What can I help you with today?"

It was too much for Cara. She checked her watch discreetly, she was several minutes early to meet Kahlan, and she hadn't really been around civilians in such a long time, especially such pretty civilians. She leaned against the corner of the desk next to the secretary and leaned over on one hand. The position almost made her tower over the girl, and allowed her the perfect view down her shirt – both of which caused the secretary to blush.

"You could help me by telling your name," Cara purred. The blush only made her more interested.

"Emily," the secretary offered in a breathy voice. Cara was used to this sort of behavior. There was something about her that oozed raw sensuality few people could resist. Of course, the poor girl would probably feel a little ashamed about their whole encounter later, but that wasn't really Cara's problem.

"Well, Emily," Cara let the name roll on her tongue, transformed into something exotic by her accent. "Does your cruel taskmistress ever give you a break?"

"Well, I get lunch and, you know, a coffee break and stuff." Emily's eyes were drawn inexorably up Cara's torso, across her flat muscled abs shown off by the worn t-shirt she was wearing and onward to her full breasts. They paused there for a long time before heading further north, pausing again at Cara's full lips before settling on her green eyes. Her blush deepened in response to the obvious lascivious glint she saw there.

"Would you like—" Whatever proposition Cara was about to make was cut short by the sharp sound of the Mayor's door opening . Cara's attention shifted immediately, and she slipped off the desk. Emily nearly fell out of her chair and squeaked in a rather unattractive way before ducking her head to hide how flustered she was.

"Cara, are you ready for lunch?" Kahlan seemed entirely unaware of the scene that was playing out so close to her office. For reasons that Cara preferred not to dwell on, Kahlan's naivety relieved her.

"Yes. But I'm not sure where we will have lunch in this town, unless you wanted to dine in a field surrounded by cows." Cara held the door for Kahlan and grinned over her shoulder at the still flustered secretary.

**CHAPTER THREE: I don't wanna bend, Let the bad girls bend**

Kahlan did her best to remain composed, though Emily's bright red face made her suspect something untoward was happening just outside her door. Maybe Cara was being crude? Since Emily had not complained, Kahlan figured it was better to just ignore it. She led Cara out of City Hall and down Main Street. She turned onto one of Aydindril's unpaved, unmarked roads moving at a brisk pace that Cara easily matched and appeared to enjoy. A dingy building with a sign proclaiming it "Denee's" was hidden back from the road on the other side of a pot-holed gravel parking lot.

She didn't paused, beelining across the parking lot and pushing open the swinging wooden door with her hip. Cara slipped in behind her. The interior was rather as dingy as the exterior. The walls were wooden, decorated with neon beer signs and posters, and the floor was bare concrete. There wasn't much else to it, just a rectangular room divided in two with old leather booths on one side and an open dance floor on the other. Cara paused just inside, taking in her surroundings carefully. Kahlan didn't pause, she made her way directly to her usual table and slid into place. She didn't need to order, her food would be out in a few minutes. She had taken the liberty of calling in an order for Cara too, though she still wasn't sure what exactly Cara liked but she had figured out one thing that she was particular to – meat.

The entire day had been almost surreal. She sat in her office, working sporadically and trying to puzzle out the enigma that Cara was to her. Richard never intruded on her thoughts once. When she stopped to consider that surprising fact, she realized that it was the first day she hadn't spent a substantial amount of time wondering about where he was, fretting about his safety, or composing long mental letters to him about the minutiae of her day. There was something liberating about that, and something that made Kahlan very nervous.

Cara settled into her seat just as a pert little waitress sashayed over and set down two plates heaping with French fries and large, meaty cheeseburgers. "I hope you like American food," Kahlan offered almost apologetically, but her fear was alleviated by the voracious way that Cara tore into the food in front of her. The other woman was not much of a talker, but she made it through her food fairly quickly, allowing her to sit back and study Kahlan while she took a more leisurely time with her meal.

"So, that picture you showed me, what did the stuff on the back mean? Cypher and Mord-Sith 001?" Kahlan asked between bites after delicately swiping her lips with her napkin.

While studying Kahlan, Cara began shredding her own napkin, carefully tearing it into evenly sized pieces. "Cypher is Richard Rahl's call sign," Cara replied, averting her eyes from Kahlan's.

"And Mord-Sith 001?" she prodded. Kahlan could tell that Cara was being evasive, from the tone of her voice and her inability to maintain eye contact. Her behavior only further piqued Kahlan's curiosity.

Cara drug her fingertip through the pile of confetti, scattering it in a sinuous pattern along the table next to her empty plate. "That's not a call sign. That's a designation – a title. And a job."

"What sort of job?" Kahlan didn't look up from her food, so she didn't see Cara become unnaturally still again, as if time for her had simply paused for a moment. When Cara didn't respond right away, Kahlan dropped her fork onto her plate with a louder clatter than she had intended, causing Cara to flinch.

"Like a commando," Cara finally offered in a voice totally devoid of emotion.

That wasn't at all the sort of response that Kahlan had expected. She knew from the picture that Cara was a soldier, but she had assumed that she was the sort of soldier that didn't actually fight. Maybe Cara pushed papers or something like she imagined women in the American military did. The unexpected revelation cast Cara in a new light. Kahlan studied her for a second, noticing really for the first time the hard lines of the muscles in her shoulders and forearms, and the easy way she sat – Kahlan shuddered – as if she were familiar with violence.

"Does that bother you?" Cara quirked an eyebrow and nearly sneered as she asked the question.

"No." Kahlan went back to her food diligently, trying to push the thought of Cara killing out of her head.

They didn't talk for the rest of lunch, and Kahlan tried to hide her relief when Cara dropped her off back at her office, walking her all the way to the door. She waved Emily's polite chatter off, retrieving her messages and then closed the door firmly behind her. She dropped into her chair, leafing through the little slips without actually reading them before discarding them onto her desk.

Thoughts roiled through her head, and she finally stopped fighting them. She would be no good to anyone until she sorted herself out. If Cara was a commando, and she was Richard's friend, that meant that he was more than a simple infantryman like he had led her to believe. That also meant he was probably in more danger than she had ever realized. Cara's face pushed Richard entirely out fairly quickly though. The blonde woman wasn't even as tall as she was, but she knew how to kill. Kahlan could tell by the hard look that sometimes crossed her face, that Cara didn't just know how but that she actually had – maybe a lot.

Kahlan spun around in her chair and caught herself at the end of the rotation on the corner of her desk. The jolt shocked her and she had to pause before she spun herself again. Cara might be some kind of killer, but Richard sent her, so he must trust her. That must make her safe. Not a killer than, Kahlan decided, but a hero. Probably a really impressive war hero. Everything about Cara was quietly impressive, so Kahlan had little trouble imagining the whole box full of medals she had probably earned; medals won probably making the world safe for freedom and democracy like Richard was always talking about.

A mental image formed of Cara in a pressed uniform, like the one Richard had worn to their wedding, with a row of medals on her chest and her hat tucked firmly under her cocked arm. It sent a pleasurable shiver down her spine and made her breath catch. How had she not noticed how good looking Cara was? Well, she had noticed, but only in passing as she tried not to guess whether Richard knew her biblically, but now her attractiveness struck Kahlan in a way unrelated to Richard – in a universe far far away from the one where Richard existed. She squirmed in her chair a little.

A woman had never really affected her like this. To be fair, Kahlan had little sexual experience at all before she met Richard. She was a quiet girl and slow to trust, and the men that usually inhabited a place like Aydindril were loud and coarse with very particular ideas about how to treat a woman. She was forward-thinking, however, and the idea didn't necessarily bother her on principle.

"You're a married woman," Kahlan whispered to herself. "And Richard is away defending your country." Saying the words out loud almost helped.

Consciously mentioning Richard every moment her mind was idle for the rest of the workday helped dispel some of her guilt and the shadow that Cara was casting across her mind. She felt pleased with herself, like a trial had been overcome. Until she arrived home and Cara was lounging in the kitchen in a tight pair of boxer shorts and a white tank top. There was no bra under the tank top, and there was not much left to the imagination as a result. Her feet were kicked up on the edge of the table and a heaping bowl of something steaming was sitting across from her, and in front of the other empty chair was a second bowl.

Kahlan stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, catching herself on the frame. There was no way in hell she was going into the den of iniquity that her kitchen had become. Cara's barely clothed presence had managed to taint the entire room with barely contained, raw sensuality that Kahlan could not handle, not after the distracting day she had. Before she could slip quietly upstairs to her bedroom, Cara noticed her.

"I made dinner." She didn't sound as if she expected a reply, and went back to spooning the exotic looking stew into her mouth without waiting to see if Kahlan decided to try some.

Careful to avoid looking directly at the blonde woman, who reminded her strikingly of a lioness feasting at that moment, Kahlan made her way into the kitchen and sat down. She couldn't be rude, no matter how much she wanted to, it wasn't in her DNA. The food was unfamiliar but good, and Kahlan had little trouble pretending to enjoy it as they ate in silence.

She had never eaten dinner with Richard at her kitchen table. He had never even cooked her dinner. Suddenly, Kahlan felt very lonely.

**CHAPTER FOUR: I'm paranoid of all the people I meet, why are they talking to me?**

Cara borrowed Kahlan's old GMC Sierra to drive, and took off the entire next day, driving the two hours to the largest town in the county where her shipment of equipment was waiting. It was also the closest place with a fully stocked hardware store. She got home after Kahlan was already in bed, and set about, even in the dark, to begin to secure the house. The motion detectors were installed and she was well into placing the pressure sensors under the windows when Kahlan woke up and padded down the stairs in her bathrobe. Cara hadn't slept at all that night, but she felt rested and still alert.

Kahlan looked rumpled, her long silky hair tangled around her head and her eyes hooded by heavy lids. Cara sat back on her heels, holding her screwdriver still, and watched intently as the woman passed. Really, every angle as a good angle for her, and nothing but her friendship with Richard was keeping Cara's wandering hands in check. Not for the first time, she cursed the obnoxious man who had rescued her.

The mess of boxes and unfamiliar electronics equipment finally penetrated Kahlan's sleep fogged brain and she paused in the middle of the living room, staring around her.

"What are you doing?"

Cara held up the screwdriver. "Fixing your house," she explained in a slow voice, dragging out each word in case Kahlan was too dumb to understand.

"My house was broken?"

There was no good way to explain to an innocent (though beautiful) civilian that her house was essentially a giant dwelling of death. She could think of thirty or forty ways to kill everyone in side right at that instant without even straining her mental powers much. Given a couple of hours and a floorplan which could easily be obtained from the county, Cara could devise literally hundreds of ways to kill everything that had ever set foot inside the place. She went for the easy lie instead.

"Yes. Very broken." Cara patted the floorboard in front of where she was crouched. "All fixed now."

"O-kay," Kahlan rubbed her eyes. "Will it be more fixed – and clean – when I get home from work today?"

"Yes." The sooner the house was safe, the sooner Cara could actually sleep in it and the sooner she would stop looking over her shoulder every time she passed a window. But, Kahlan's concern made Cara feel better about her decision to leave the bullet-proof glass leaning outside. She definitely did not want to explain that.

Halfway through the afternoon, the heat began to send trails of sweat down between Cara's shoulder blades as she hoisted and set the new window panes. Neighbors walked by and stared curiously. The milkman (there was a fucking milkman in town!) even slowed down as his truck rolled past. Just as she hefted the next pane up the ladder, the phone inside rang insistently. It was an old corded model with a loud mechanical ring that grated against Cara's nerves, and nothing would stop the hideous noise faster than simply answering it.

She carefully retreated down the ladder and leaned the pane against the wall, before jogging into the house. The voice on the other end of the line was not Kahlan like she had expected. She assumed that in a small town like this, someone had stopped into ask the mayor what the hell was going on at her house and when had she hired a stranger to start fixing the place up?

"Cara?" the voice purred, in a low tone and an accent like her own.

"Who the fuck is this?" Cara growled in return, spinning around in the hallway to study her surroundings. How close where they? What did they want? The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

"You haven't forgotten your sisters so soon have you?" the voice laughed softly, menacingly. "We haven't forgotten you."

Cara dropped the receiver back on the cradle and sprinted around the corner, blasting through the living room and taking the stairs three at a time. Her breath was coming hard, burning her lungs, and her heart rate accelerated – the first warning signs of an impending panic attack. She tore her fingertips up, scrambling to move the hidden board and retrieve her sidearm. That's how Kahlan found her an hour later, pressed into the corner of the guest room closet, holding her Agiel so tight her knuckles had turned white and her fingers cramped.

The fact that the house was still in disarray, and missing several windows, may have been the impetus that sent Kahlan looking for Cara, but when she got a good look at the other woman, she charged to her side and dropped to her knees in front of her. Gingerly she reached out and put her hands over Cara's on the gun. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"It's not safe for me here." Cara stared through Kahlan's concerned face into the dark space inside of her own mind. The called had sounded familiar, not just in the accent which reminded her of home, but the silken purr and the sensual menace underlying each syllable. Violence usually followed in the wake of that voice. She had been wrong to think that simple things like new windows and an alarm system would make her safe. She would never be safe. Her troubled thoughts inflamed the scars that crisscrossed her back and belly, reminding her of the final explosive blast of pain that shook her permanently from her old life and set her on the path that led her to Aydindril.

"And you're probably not safe here anymore either. They've probably seen you." The Mord-Sith never let a sister leave alive, and collateral damage didn't keep them up at night.

Instead of reacting how Cara had expected, by crying or fainting from fear, Kahlan leaned forward, her hands still covering Cara's own, and pressed her soft lips to Cara's. The kiss was chaste, but Kahlan filled Cara's senses, and Cara was powerless to not lean into it.

"Don't worry," Kahlan murmured when she finally pulled away, "I'll protect you."

**CHAPTER FIVE: Don't even talk about the consequence  
Cause right now you're the only thing that's making any sense to me**

Kahlan had lost her mind. Somehow and somewhere, her mind had fallen out of her head and wandered away. There was no other explanation for the brazen way she had just kissed a nearly complete stranger –another woman!—right after receiving news like that. Her body didn't mind the loss of her mind though, and had already begun clambering for more. She fisted her hands against her thighs to keep from reaching out to grab Cara and pull her in again. She took a few deep breathes while her eyes remained locked with Cara's. The expression on the blonde's face was impossible to read. She hadn't slapped her yet, which was probably a good sign.

Time ticked away. Seconds extended into minutes into eternity. Kahlan felt almost certain she had been trapped in that in between moment for her entire life. Then Cara moved, just slightly, a pulling back, a caving in. She hunched her shoulders up, pushing further into the closet, hands still tight on the gun. The obvious vulnerability of her posture tugged at Kahlan.

"I need you to move," she said finally, and Kahlan was startled at how steady her voice sounded. "You're making me feel trapped."

Letting out a long breath of air in an audible woosh, Kahlan sat back on her heels and then slowly pushed herself to her feet. Her knees ached from kneeling. She couldn't think of any words to say so she turned to exit the bedroom, pausing to linger at the door and look over her shoulder at Cara. They made eye contact again, and Kahlan wasn't sure if it made her feel like she was being undressed, or being sized up for a coffin.

The downstairs was still littered with construction materials, forcing Kahlan to pick her path carefully into the kitchen. There was half a carafe of tepid coffee in the pot, so Kahlan poured herself a mug and sat at the table, back comfortingly to a wall. She would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that Cara's behavior scared her a little, not really because she feared danger there in her own house, in her own town – the setting was simply too banal – but more that Cara had been unflappable in the few days she had known her. Thinking about Cara's stoicism only brought to mind her smirk, which was the only expression she displayed besides her impassive mask, and that naturally led to thinking about her lips as she smirked, and from there it was a simple progression to reminiscing about the silky feel of them under her own as they kissed.

Her chin was propped in her hand while she daydreamed, sipping her stale coffee. When Cara finally descended the stairs, she found her off in her own fantasyland. Cara's full duffel was over the blonde's shoulder, and she tossed a similar, though empty, one at the table in front of Kahlan.

"You need to pack."

Cara's actual lips were moving but Kahlan had to force herself to physically concentrate on the words they were forming and not the curve of their sensual shape. That was just wrong. She never had that trouble with Richard. He was handsome, to be sure, but not distractingly so. A tidal wave of guilt hit her low in the gut – Richard, her _husband_. She had kissed someone that wasn't her husband and worse still, she enjoyed it and she wanted to repeat the experience.

"You. Need. To. Pack." Cara repeated slowly, enunciating exaggeratedly like she was talking to a small child.

Her brisk attitude, delivered from such a divinely kissable mouth, met Kahlan's guilt and transmuted, twisting into hot anger. Words, powered by the force of her emotion, spilled out of her nearly unbidden and certainly more than she meant to verbalize. "No. I am not going anywhere. This is my house, the house my grandmother built, and I am the Mayor of this town. I can't just walk away from my duty," Kahlan slapped her palm against the tabletop to emphasize her point. "Especially without any explanation from you. Just because you're in league with Richard doesn't mean you can just walk in and run my life!" Inwardly she cringed at how much the last part reminded her of herself as a teenager, raging at her mother who insisted that Kahlan accompany her to the Mayor's office so she could learn the ins and outs of government bureaucracy firsthand.

"You're in danger. Isn't that explanation enough?" Cara sounded decidedly exasperated.

"No. It's not."

Cara's duffel slipped off her shoulder and thumped against the floor next to her feet. She followed, dropping onto the floor across from Kahlan. "What do you need explained exactly? The dictionary definition of the word 'danger'?"

Kahlan wanted a lot of things explained, dangerous things. Cara's mystery was magnetic to her, an enigma that she wanted to crawl inside. She wanted to know everything about her, be the only person who really knew her, be privy to her immeasurable secrets. She imagined that knowing even the littlest thing about Cara would be more intimate even then sex. And just as unlikely to occur. Kahlan refocused herself on the more pressing issues.

"Why are we in danger? Why do we have to leave? Why are you renovating my house without permission?" Kahlan heard her voice rising in pitch but she couldn't control it now. "Who you are? How you know Richard? Why he sent you here?"

"That's a lot of questions." Cara set her elbows on the table and leaned forward. Intensity radiated off of her. "Why don't you ask the question you are really curious about, and then you can get to packing."

"What question is that?" Kahlan leaned back to match Cara's advance. Inexplicably, she began to blush.

"Did I like it when you kissed me?" Cara nearly purred. Her accent made the question nearly obscene. Kahlan gasped softly and tried to look anywhere but directly at Cara. "And the answer is yes. I did. But now we need to get moving."

Waves of heat started around Kahlan's breasts and swept downward, inundating her body. Dampness gathered between her thighs, but she had to concentrate. _Richard, _Kahlan mentally chanted, _Richard, Richard, Richard, Richard. _She tried to summon a mental image of him, but it was muddy and dissipated as soon as she glanced across the table. It felt like Cara was swelling to fill her reality, causing her skin to tingle and buzz. She shifted in her chair.

"I need more than that," Kahlan breathed, unsure herself of whether she meant information or Cara.

Either oblivious to Kahlan's growing arousal, or ignoring it, Cara chose to interpret Kahlan literally. "The…people…I used to work for. I think they've found me. And they will have seen you, and they are not afraid of," Cara paused meaningfully, "collateral damage."

The idea of commandos repelling into Aydindril to shoot the place up was just too ridiculous, to foreign to her entire concept of the world. Kahlan's mind rejected it, saving her from the mental dissonance it would cause. "I think maybe you are really tired Cara. This isn't a battlezone, its Montana. You're safe here. I told you I would protect you." Kahlan stood up, moving to the sink to rinse out her coffee mug to keep her hands busy. It was easier to talk with her back to the blonde. "Tomorrow I'll make you an appointment to see the doctor. Maybe the war just…got to you."

That was a mistake. She could hear the scratching of the chair against the floor as Cara stood, and exited the room without another word. Whatever she had hoped to accomplish with their conversation, she had failed, and she had learned nothing more about the circumstances that had brought Cara to her.

**CHAPTER SIX: Here we go again, I kinda wanna be more than friends**

The explosion of mortars around her kicked dust into the air, chocking her as she tried to scream. Muzzle flares flashed off through the growing clouds of chaos, disrupting her feeble attempts to concentrate enough to push to her feet. She crawled to her knees. Blood and gore hung down from the huge hole in her stomach she could no longer feel. She was in shock. A hand reached down, grasping her hair and yanking her hard to her feet. Instinctively she reached back, grabbing at the wrist of her capture, to no avail. Blood loss had made her inexcusably weak.

"Cara," her attacker leaned close, murmuring into her ear, reminding her off all the times that Triana had whispered her name like that while they lay naked in bed. Power plays were power plays though, and nothing was a better cover for a political assassination then a battle – Cara should have remembered that. No one reached the top in an organization like the elite Mord-Sith without breaking a few eggs, and the upper echelons of their military encouraged such behavior – weed out the weak, feed the killer instinct, allow the cream to rise to the top. Now the cream was being skimmed.

The knife slid in, so sharp it was nearly painless, parting the flesh between her ribs. A last, unnecessary gesture since her life was quickly running out of her, like her guts. Triana's laugh followed Cara into the darkness of eternity.

Grime and goo crusted Cara's eyes closed and it was torturous to open them. More of a struggle was mentally sorting out how it was that being dead she still had eyes to open. In the low light, and perhaps as a result of the head wound she had sustained besides, it took longer than usual for her eyes to focus. Standing over her was an American, dressed in an ACU with Major's insignia – and the shaggiest haircut she had ever seen on a soldier. The change in her breathing must have given away her return to consciousness because he leaned forward before her eyes were totally opened and reached out to check the pulse at her neck.

He waited until she had reoriented herself before speaking. She was laying on a cot, covered to the neck by a white sheet, in a tent printed in desert camo colors. Cool air was being circulated by a buzzing machine in the corner but aside from a few tables and the beeping of the medical equipment connected to her by a series of wires and tubes the tent was empty. Apparently she was the only patient.

"Welcome to Operation Seeker," the man above her smiled kindly. "My name is Major Rahl and I have been authorized by my government to provide you with this offer for your consideration."

For your consideration.

For your consideration.

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.

Cara snapped immediately from sleep to wakefulness, a skill that had served her well as a soldier. In a split second she evaluated the room, everything was in order. That didn't necessarily improve her mood, however, trapped as she still was in Kahlan's deathtrap of a Victorian and no closer to convincing the frustrating woman into heading somewhere safer with her.

Days had passed, nearly a week Cara realized, since the phone call. Kahlan had remained adamant – she went to work, accompanied by a watchful Cara; she ate lunch at Denee's, accompanied by a watchful Cara; she insisted on doing all the cooking and cleaning, still accompanied by a watchful Cara. There was no way that the Mord-Sith were joking. They hadn't forgotten about her, which would have been perfectly fine in the nihilistic sense if Richard's full blown stupidity and dangerous desire to care for people hadn't brought her to Aydindril and put Kahlan directly in the cross-hairs.

The time spent together was not exactly a chore, Cara was forced to admit. Kahlan did everything with a natural grace and dignity that seemed wholly out of place in her rural surroundings. It was a particular pleasure to watch her walk, from behind, and Kahlan either didn't notice or chose to ignore Cara's ogling, which had become more blatant. If Cara was going to be responsible for something horrible happening to that woman (and her breathtaking rack) then she was at least going to enjoy the view while everything was in one piece. They talked, rather Kahlan talked, over lunch about little things. Kahlan's favorite topic of conversation seemed to be feelings – not Cara's favorite. But there was something mesmerizing about the play of the muscles in her throat as she swallowed and spoke, so Cara forgave her tendency to chatter on.

What she couldn't forgive was how readily her body responded to the slightest stimuli related to Kahlan. The brush of her hand on Cara's when they both reached for the salt, the bump of her hip when they walked too close together on the way to her office in the morning, the intensity that burned in her blue eyes whenever they made eye contact – all of it spelled doom for the physical integrity of Cara's panties. It was a terrible breach of the iron control that she usually exerted. Years of training, physical and mental, had honed her body into the perfect weapon – weapons were only perfect when they were well balanced. Being lust drunk over your friend's wife was indicative of an imbalance.

Cara slid out of bed, pulling the tank top on that she had discarded on the floor next to her bed the night before, and made her way downstairs, fully expecting to see Kahlan cooking breakfast. There was no coffee brewing when she reached the kitchen, and the brunette was nowhere to be seen. She was a morning person, something that Cara found annoying, and so there had not been a single morning that she hadn't woken up before Cara. Concerned, Cara headed back upstairs to check her bedroom. Kahlan's sheets had been slept in, the room smelled like the perfume she spritzed on after doing her hair and right before putting on her jewelry (Cara prided herself on remembering the little things). No sign of a struggle.

A mounting sense of concern crept into the back of Cara's mind. Maybe her nightmare was a premonition, her subconscious alerting her to the presence of danger. She grabbed her Agiel, slipping into the back waistband of the jeans she hurriedly pulled on before dashing out of the house. She prowled the exterior, searching for even the most minute sign of intrusion. Her senses were honed – in war details were the difference between life and death. Nothing was out of place. Concern reached the it's peak, transforming into unfamiliar anxiety.

She sprinted down the street, accelerating past quiet houses full of sleeping occupants unaware of all the wolves in their midst, and took the corner onto Main Street so fast that her bare feet (and when had she forgotten to put her shoes on!) slipped on the gravel, causing her to nearly tumble. Her reflexes saved her from disaster and she regained her balance, not even pausing in her run.

The door nearly came off the hinges, Cara hit it so hard as she charged into City Hall. Her breath was coming hard now, raggedly tearing at her lungs. Around the corner, down the hall, through the door – like she had every day that week, except now she looked wild and half-dressed, moving at a speed that turned her into a blur.

Emily screamed as Cara burst in, but Cara didn't stop. Just as she slammed open the door to Kahlan's office, the brunette was leaping out of her chair, probably scared by the sounds of her secretary's distress.

"Shit," Cara murmured, stopped finally in her tracks by the sight of Kahlan unharmed. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER SEVEN: I don't need to get steady, I know just how I feel**

Kahlan had been jerked from sleep two hours early by the harsh ringing off the phone. She fumbled in the darkness for the receiver beside her bed and managed to maneuver it to her ear without sitting up.

"Yeah?" She muttered thickly, the word half-incomprehensible behind a mouth-splitting yawn.

"Mayor, we need you down at City Hall," the voice of Aydindril's Sheriff was serious enough to push her toward full consciousness. She sat up in bed, cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder as she tossed the covers off her legs. "There's been a situation. We found one of my deputies dead in the basement and it looks like there's been a break in."

The rest of the morning was a surreal blur. The hour was too early for Kahlan to feel comfortable about waking up Cara, as much as she would have preferred her presence for the air of safety it lent her. She dressed hurriedly, and decided to drive her truck instead of walk, a decision she felt good about when she stepped out into the early morning gloom to find that all the street lights down her street were out. It was still thirty or forty minutes to sun rise. She made a mental note to send out one of the city employees to check out the lights later.

Sheriff Brandstone liked to keep things low key. He didn't believe in encouraging rubbernecking, which so frequently became a problem when tragedies struck in small towns, so it was no surprise to Kahlan that there was just two sheriff's cruisers parked in front of City Hall but no visible fuss. She used her key to unlock the side employee entrance. The interior was dark, the Sheriff must be in the basement, and the dreadful oppression of the pregnant shadows. Again, she wished that she had woken Cara to accompany her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, accentuating the itchy anxiety that mounted along her spine as she made her way through usually familiar hallways. The door down to the boiler room was propped open by an office chair, and the glow of lights alerted Kahlan to the presence of the Sheriff. She was relieved to descend the stairs and into the presence of half of Aydindril's sheriff's department.

Three deputies, in tan uniforms and dark brown cowboy hats, were arrayed in a half circle around the back corner of the concrete room that housed the big oil boiler that heated the building. Standing off to the side, holding his hat in his hands and worrying the brim with thick fingers, was Sheriff Brandstone. The little window set at the top of the wall, allowing light in during the day, was broken with the glass fragmented inward and scattered across the floor.

When Kahlan arrived, the Sheriff glanced up. The worry lines set in his face were accentuated by the heavy shadows. However, he looked moderately relieved by Kahlan's entrance. Crime in Aydindril was minor, and the surrounding county was only sparsely populated. He dealt with the occasional break in by a drifter, or minor traffic violations. Sometimes he had to head down to Denee's to break up a bar fight, but the last murder that occurred in Aydindril had been when Kahlan was still in high school. One of the farmer's who worked a few acres of wheat just outside of town got drunk and killed his wife. That was before Brandstone had gotten elected, and it had been hard enough that it sent his predecessor deep into a bottle.

"Todd," Brandstone gestured toward whatever the deputies were shielding her from, "it looks like he took two to the back of the head. Execution style." The last words rung against the walls. Kahlan had never longed for Cara's solid presence like she did at that moment. Surrounded by law enforcement personnel could not lend the sense of safety that the blond provided all by herself. "And that window just isn't big enough for your average person to get through. Todd wasn't a small guy either, and he was on duty tonight, but he didn't radio anything in. Brad saw the broken window when he was walking home after his shift. Last time I heard from Todd, he was across town near the gas station."

Kahlan wrapped her arms around her midsection. Goosebumps were rising along her skin and she wished she had grabbed a sweatshirt _and _Cara. "Well, Chase, I'm not a detective," she tried to keep her voice even and reassuring; though the Sheriff was many years her senior and a broad, well-built man, she could sense the unease that he was radiating. "But it seems to me that maybe we should radio to the next county, see if they can send down someone from the city. Like a homicide detective. When this gets out, the whole town is going to be tied in knots and you'll need all your boys just to keep people feeling safe."

He nodded thoughtfully, obviously grateful for direction. "The coroner will be out soon. He was down at the Richards' place. Old Man Richard passed a few hours ago." He sounded more official, stronger now.

"I'll need to remember to send Lita a condolence card," Kahlan thought out loud. They were on safer ground now. "I'll be in my office. When you know more, bring me some info so I can do some damage control." She turned and headed back toward the stairs, reluctant to head back into the darkness alone. "Oh," she stopped at the bottom stair, "do you want me to call Todd's wife for you?" She glanced over her shoulder, unsurprised when Sheriff Brandstone nodded the affirmative.

Emily didn't arrive for hours, so Kahlan was left inside her locked office, jumping at every little sound. Several times Kahlan found herself reaching for the phone to call Cara, but it would be unseemly she decided and stopped herself. The rest of the morning moved in a flash after Emily arrived and she could relax into her work as best she could with the flood of phone calls that inundated her office starting a little before seven.

After the pain of handling the call to Todd's wife, she nearly had forgotten about Cara entirely. Until, the blonde burst into her office, disheveled and barefoot, preceded by the terrified shriek of her secretary. Her breath caught in her throat – there was something magnificent about Cara in that moment; her shoulder length hair was a halo around her face, flushed from running, and her tank top pulled across her heaving chest without benefit of a bra. It was her bare feet however that really struck Kahlan. She groaned, biting her lower lip to stifle the sound as a pulse of electricity set every one of her nerve endings on fire.

Tension and fear had worked on Kahlan all morning. The conversation with Todd's wife had drained strength, leaving her vulnerable to the wash of emotions that Cara provoked in her. She didn't know which one of them moved first, maybe it was better that way to alleviate the guilt, but before she knew it she was cradled against Cara's chest, face tucked in against her neck as she began to cry. Cara's arms enclosed her tightly. She could feel the muscles in her biceps flexing against her back as the blonde drew her in tighter.

Where the permission to let herself break like that came from, Kahlan wasn't sure but it felt exquisite to be perfectly safe, cherished in strong arms while she indulged in a little emotional excess. Only after they had stood tightly entwined for several long, delicious moments did Kahlan run her hands down the muscled expanse of Cara's back and encounter the cold metal of her gun. It shocked her back to reality, drawing back from the other woman, doing her best to try to hide the confused concern that swept through her.

"What's going on Cara? What are you doing like—" she gestured at Cara's entire presentation, "—that?"

There was a long pause between the point where Kahlan physically disengaged from Cara and when Cara finally pulled herself together enough to reply. She looked vaguely dazed in Kahlan's opinion, but she couldn't for the life of her remember if she looked that way when she walked in or whether it was a product of Kahlan's behavior.

"I thought," Cara began but her voice broke and she was forced to stop, scowling. She coughed, looking quickly away from Kahlan before trying again. "I thought that you were in trouble. You went to work early and you didn't tell me you were leaving."

Kahlan took a hesitant step backward until her knees hit the seat of her office chair and she dropped gratefully into it. There was a feeling, both familiar and strange, building in her stomach. A feeling that was supposed to be reserved for her husband – a feeling like affection and admiration, wrapped in dripping desire and full of longing. This was a very bad development. Simply wanting to sleep with Cara, which she felt willing now to admit was at least a little fantasy she had harbored, due in no small part to Cara's constant habit of not wearing a bra under white shirts, was not the worst thing in the world. Being married didn't make you dead, and being from a small town didn't mean that she was small minded about who it was acceptable to find attractive. The fact that she was Richard's friend made it a little worse. But _feelings_.

She reached up and rubbed the heel of her palm against her forehead. It had been a long day, even though it was still only midmorning. She was drained. Maybe she should have a drink with lunch at Denee's, she considered. But that didn't solve the problem of Cara standing in front of her. Apparently her silence had solved the problem because Cara turned and disappeared so quietly on her barefeet that if Kahlan weren't watching her intently, she wouldn't have noticed her exit.

One thing after another, she grumbled to herself. Cara's feelings appeared to be hurt. Before she could really think about what that meant, how it made her feel, the phone on her desk rang again. She braced herself for another sobbing phone call from a grieving townsperson, only to be shocked by an affectionate man's voice murmuring her name.

"Richard?" she breathed his name, not wanting to even hope that it was really him. Nearly a month had passed since his last, brief call. There was no way for him to write letters, wherever he was, and no internet access. She knew he was alive because no one had come to inform her differently, but now he was there, as close as he had been in so long. "God Richard, I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Kahlan. Being away from you is like having an arm ripped off or something," Richard's voice sounded far away and tainted with static, but Kahlan felt like she could listen to it forever. Just when she thought she had stumbled into an emotional quagmire that she couldn't find her way out of, Richard simplified everything. "I'm hoping to get to come home, at least for a while, sometime later in the fall." That was nearly six months away and Kahlan couldn't stifle her disappointed noise. "I'm really sorry it can't be sooner, sweetie. I'm trying to make the world safe for freedom and democracy. But at least you have Cara there with you, right? She arrived safe and sound?"

And then, just as soon as her world seemed righted again, it was sent spinning out of control by the mere mention of Cara's name.

"She's here," Kahlan hedged, uncertain of how to discuss Cara with Richard. "Sound is another matter entirely. But, she's been helping out around the house and done some remodeling."

"Cara's the best. I know she's not much of a talker, and you're a talker, but I thought she needed a safe place to be and you were probably lonely out there. She'll protect you like I would, and keep all the guys from sniffing around my pretty wife while I'm away." The irony nearly made Kahlan throw up.

"A safe place for what?" As unhappy and lost as she felt, Kahlan couldn't resist the opportunity to find out more about her houseguest.

"Cara's…sick. It happens to soldiers sometimes, you know, they see things and things happen to them. Cara's seen a lot of things, and a lot of things have happened to her. But she's come a long way and I would trust her with my life." Richard paused for a moment, before asking, "She hasn't done anything that frightened you did she?"

"No," Kahlan sighed. And it was true, Cara hadn't done anything to frighten her, all the terrifying things were happening inside of Kahlan and while Cara might be the catalyst she wasn't at fault.

The rest of their conversation petered out into small talk until Richard reluctantly told Kahlan that he had to go and cut the line. She felt very alone as she set the phone down.

**CHAPTER EIGHT: Love is not a victory march**

There were two kinds of mistakes that Cara had made in her life. All of the missteps, miscalculations and bone-headed moves could all be ordered into two discrete categories: those that were caused by women and the pesky feelings they invariably provoked, and those caused by the men dating/married to the aforementioned women. Beating the hell out of your last lay's irate boyfriend had caused an evening to end in the lock-up several times. Lust and violence were really her only vices, she reassured herself. And maybe wrath.

She had just made one of the first kind of mistakes. Slowing down, probably would have helped, but it had been such a long time since she had actually worried about someone else's safety. Even with Richard, she was confident that he could take care of himself and knew how to alert her if necessary. Now she was walking back down the street, being stared at by rubber-necking hillbillies, with no damn shoes on and her gun out. Touching the gun made her skin crawl. Looking at it was difficult. But she hadn't even hesitated earlier when she thought Kahlan was in trouble, which only confirmed how in trouble Cara was. Now Kahlan knew. From the look in her eyes as she pulled away, Cara could tell that Kahlan _knew_; knew all the things that Cara thought about when Kahlan was around, like whether or not she was a screamer, what her skin would taste like under Cara's teeth, what it would feel like to hold Kahlan as she fell asleep.

She changed as soon as she got back to Kahlan's house, and remembered shoes this time. Without the adrenaline it was almost too much for her to slip her Agiel back into its hidey hole – her hands trembled. Kahlan would certainly have lunch at Denee's like she usually did, so in lieu of sitting alone with her own thoughts, Cara left for the bar early. She could get in a few drinks before Kahlan arrived.

Denee's was in a full uproar by the time Cara arrived. She pushed the door open, only to be hit by a blasting wall of sound composed of most of the town's population shouting, talking and whispering all at once. Only at that point did Cara realize that in the sudden rush of emotion that she had failed to control, she had never asked Kahlan what had prompted the crying or her early departure from the house. Instinct told her that it was probably related to whatever the towns' folk were vigorously gossiping about. She slipped through the crowd, avoiding full drinks and toes as she wended her way to the bar.

As she leaned against the bar, Denee herself came to offer her a beer. In the last couple of days she had become as regular as Kahlan, and begun to enjoy the privileges that attended her new status. At first, she hadn't realized that Denee was Kahlan's younger sister. Where Kahlan was dark haired and fair skinned, tall and curvaceous, Denee was blond and sun-kissed with a significantly slighter build. Kahlan had finally informed her off-handedly over lunch one day, and laughed at the look of surprise on Cara's face.

"What's going on?" Cara asked Denee as she gestured at the crowd with her beer.

Denee laughed lightly. "I thought you would know best. Didn't Kahlan tell you?" The looks Denee shot her when she thought Cara wasn't looking were confusing. She was almost certain that Denee could see right through her and knew precisely what the other blonde wanted to do to her sister, but she couldn't tell whether or not that made her angry. She had never talked to Denee about Richard, though to be fair she did her best to avoid talking about Richard anyway. Lately, just the mention of him made her guilty.

"Actually, Kahlan left for work early today and I haven't seen her," Cara lied smoothly. If Denee hadn't heard about her being a psycho, than there really was something big gumming up the small town gossip grapevine.

"Deputy Todd got murdered this morning at City Hall. It's a huge mystery. We haven't had a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty…well, ever. And they don't have any clues, like, I heard someone came through a window too small for a person and shot him-" she lowered her voice "—execution style."

Cara's glass of beer hit the bar top with a startling thud.

"I heard that they think a ghost did it because there aren't any footprints outside or anything," a helpful, slightly drunk man offered, leaning into the conversation from his position next to Cara at the bar. "Damndest thing I ever heard."

"Murdered at _City Hall_?" Right in the same building as Kahlan's office? Cara didn't add, but it was the most important point. She had known, since the phone call, she had been certain but Kahlan wouldn't listen to her. Rural burglars, and even drifters from the city, wouldn't have been able to pull off something like that, and in a place like City Hall.

The Mord-Sith had arrived.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER NINE: It starts out easy, something simple, something sleazy, something inching past the edge of the reserve**

Kahlan silently appreciated Cara's presence next to her in the crowded bar. The blonde warded off anyone who tried to approach with an intense, take-no-shit look. She also stayed comfortingly quiet, eating her hamburger and remaining stoic, no hint of emotion. Being with Cara could be the most comfortable part of Kahlan's day – it just felt easy, almost low-key when she wasn't thoroughly wound up with arousal.

Cara walked Kahlan back to her office, hands shoved in her pocket. Kahlan just didn't want to be alone, though she recognized that Cara was an important issue that needed to be addressed soon. At five o'clock straight up, always punctual, Cara was waiting for Kahlan on the curb outside City Hall.

They didn't talk for the rest of the evening while Kahlan made dinner, hands shaking perceptibly and Cara did the dishes. The soapy water wrinkled her strong hands; Kahlan almost commented on it and then caught herself. Cara didn't appear to mind the lack of discussion, maybe she even enjoyed it. It only contributed to the sense of unease that plagued Kahlan all day.

She leaned back in her chair at the kitchen table and just watched Cara's back as she worked, shoulders moving which pulled her t-shirt taught against defined muscles. It didn't matter what the blonde was doing – Kahlan always seemed to be prenaturally aware of her body and today was no different. In fact, today was worse than any day that preceded it. Cara's arrival in her office had been confusing and frightening, but the feeling of being held by her had lingered, turning into heat that pooled now at the bottom of her belly. She shifted, either to relieve the pressure building between her legs or exacerbate it; she wasn't sure.

And then Kahlan had an out of body experience.

She stood, pushing in her chair neatly before rounding the table, even in the grip of powerful sexual urges, she liked to keep things tidy. Cara remained unaware, or at least appeared to be, with her back still to Kahlan. And then, Kahlan watched herself as she stepped up behind the slightly shorter woman, wrapping her arms around her waist and planted an open-mouthed kiss against the side of her neck. Cara jerked unexpectedly in her arms, taking a deep gasping breath.

Unsure, and so very unmoored from her own previous experience, Kahlan chose to take that as encouragement. Though, later she might have to consider why she wanted to be encouraged and too what end. She ran the palms of her hands up Cara's flat stomach beneath her t-shirt, feeling the surprisingly silky expanse of skin over the hard muscles that contracted at her touch. Before she even realized how far she had allowed herself to get out of control, the tops of her hands brushed against the lower swell of Cara's breasts, clad in a simple cotton bra.

"Kahlan," Cara breathed her name, almost desperately, which gave Kahlan an inordinate amount of pride. She had been lonelier than she had ever realized before; more starved for human touch and the warmth of another body than she had thought possible without expiring. All that time since Richard left she had spent bottling up her desires and needs. Kahlan had, despite the solitariness of her life, always been a sensual person that craved contact. She had contact now – a lot of it as she slipped her fingers under the edge of Cara's bra and worked her hand up to cup one full breast in her palm. Cara moaned. Electricity coursed down her arm, meeting the rising tide of arousal shooting up from between her legs – Kahlan was turning into a storm of barely contained energy.

"Cara," Kahlan moaned, punctuating the other woman's name by biting down lightly where her neck met her shoulder. "I've been so lonely."

And Kahlan's out of body experience ended precipitously as Cara spun around, pushing out with damp hands to create a chasm between them. Kahlan had said something wrong, she could tell immediately from the hard lines into which Cara's face had set.

"You're lonely because Richard's gone," Cara responded flatly. "And I'm not a Richard replacement just because we both look good in a uniform."

Kahlan folded her arms across her chest, doing her best to ignore the sudden empty feeling in her palms and the surging wetness between her legs. "I don't belong to Richard."

"Maybe. But you sure as shit don't belong to me." Cara pushed away from the sink with her hips and tried to circumvent Kahlan, standing directly in front of her, but the brunette simply moved to block the path. She stepped to the side, an action mirrored by Kahlan.

"You can't keep running away from me." Kahlan was stubborn in her own way, and deeply tired of the strange distance she couldn't seem to cross between herself and Cara. She wanted too much, and it made her unwilling to dally now with niceties.

"And you can't keep throwing yourself at me!" Cara shouted, her barely contained anger finally bursting forth. She waved her hands in Kahlan's direction. "I'm only human. You're killing me, and then afterwards you'll actually kill me. Or Richard will. And I'll be a terrible friend to both of you."

"Throwing myself at you?" Kahlan arched an eyebrow incredulously. She had hardly been throwing herself at Cara – well, except for that evening and maybe that morning and it was a remote possibility that Cara was also mentioning that time that she kissed her, but that was hardly enough to warrant shouting.

Cara looked distinctly aggrieved – a look which only increased the general attractiveness of her full mouth. Only the power of good sense kept Kahlan in check and stopped her from reaching out to her. "Richard is my friend," Cara pleaded.

"I don't even know Richard!" For the first time, Kahlan had voiced her deepest fear and insecurity about her marriage, and it made her feel extremely vulnerable standing in front of a woman who seemed so very loyal to the very man who felt so like a stranger. In many ways, she felt like she knew Cara better than her own husband. She had spent nearly as much time with the blonde as she had with Richard, and while it was true that they didn't converse nearly as much, Kahlan felt as if Cara listened better – not just to the things she said, but the things she didn't say and to all of the little ways in which her body communicated without words. That knowledge coupled with her aching desire and the comfort she took in Cara's presence, all added up to something like love, didn't it?

Was Kahlan in love with Cara?

Wasn't Kahlan in love with Cara?

What did it mean for Kahlan if she was in love with Cara?

"That's lucky for you," Cara nearly spit the words, "Because I do know Richard. And I know that it would kill him if I slept with his wife. I also know he has a capacity for extreme anger too." Kahlan had been frustrated about how little Cara talked about herself or really anything at all, but now that she was talking, Kahlan almost wished she would stop. She was saying all the things that Kahlan should be saying – that being with her was wrong, it was a dereliction of duty, a betrayal of Richard. These were all things that were swiftly and inexplicably losing their meaning to Kahlan. Their little tiff was doing nothing to cool Kahlan's ardor; indeed, Cara's uncharacteristic display of emotion only made Kahlan want to soothe her more – soothe her preferably with her hands and mouth on all the curves and muscles that she clandestinely admired. Cara took a step toward Kahlan while the other woman stood silently trying to sort it all out, which the brunette assumed was meant to be intimidating, but with the realization that Kahlan loved her coursing through her veins, she just couldn't be scared of Cara. Not that she ever had been, except maybe that first moment that she appeared on the porch.

"What about me, Cara?" Kahlan was a little fed up with the way that Cara seemed to approach her as simply a possession of Richard's. He wasn't there, and he hadn't been for some time. Kahlan had been an adult woman longer than she had been Richard's wife, and she was not prepared to be treated as an accessory to a man in this situation.

"God dammit! What about you, Kahlan?" Cara took another step forward. Her breasts brushed against Kahlan's own they were so close now. "You're attracted to me. I understand that – a lot of people are," at that Cara failed to contain a cocky smirk, "But, I'm not some sexual proxy for the man in your life. And I can't give you the tenderness and love you need and deserve."

"Don't tell me what I need," Kahlan murmured, leaning closer to Cara, drawn like a magnet toward her until she was speaking nearly against her lips. They felt like silk, she knew that from previous experience and part of her wondered how that would feel against other parts of her anatomy.

Whatever resistance remained in the blonde fell away; she reached up, tangling her hands in Kahlan's long hair and jerked her close to finally connect their lips forcefully. Kahlan moaned, the sensation overwhelming, and as her lips parted to let the sound escape, Cara's tongue slid inside.

There was no question in Kahlan's mind that Cara had done this before – _this_ having sex with a girl thing. She was lifted onto the edge of the table and her pants were unbuttoned and slid down her thighs before she really registered what was occurring, since she remained totally focused on the sensation of her tongue tangling with Cara's in her mouth. Kahlan gave herself up to the feeling, to the growing arousal that threatened to overcome her entirely. Her head fell back, exposing her neck to Cara's hungry attention. She licked and nibbled her way down the column of Kahlan's throat to her collarbone and was stopped by the fact that the brunette remained annoyingly dressed. Kahlan couldn't even figure out what a shirt could possibly be for and she gladly helped Cara divest herself of hers.

A pleasurable haze enveloped Kahlan, cutting out the cold discomfort of the wooden kitchen table and the guilt that had plagued her, leaving only the tantalizing feel of Cara's tongue and teeth as they worked her nipples into hard peaks and the firm pressure of her hands massaging Kahlan's full breasts.

Everything about Cara was firm, commanding – arousing. She continued to tease Kahlan's nipples, sucking them wetly as she reached down to take her thighs and spread them, opening Kahlan to her. Even with Richard, she had never felt so vulnerable or electric with the excitement such vulnerability could cause in her.

And then Cara's head was between her legs, lapping at her clit and the dripping evidence of her enjoyment. She cried out as her hips rose, bowing her body toward Cara to offer more and more and more of herself.

A storm overcame Kahlan as her orgasm slammed into her. All the muscles in her body contracted and spasmed in wave after wave of pleasure. She cried out, head falling back as Cara's name was torn from her throat. The exquisite play of Cara's tongue over her clit didn't stop until she had wrung ever last ounce of power and energy out of her.

As Cara stood, brushing the back of her hand across her mouth, Kahlan finally collapsed backward onto the table – spent.

What was she supposed to do now?

**CHAPTER TEN: What I need is a good defense, 'Cause I'm feeling like a criminal, And I need to be redeemed**

Cara hated feelings. Right then she should have been proud of herself, smug in her sexual prowess, sated by the power she could wield over another gorgeous woman. But she wasn't. Oh, she felt good. Really really good, and she was very pleased with how absolutely debauched Kahlan looked, sprawled out on her own kitchen table with clothes in dishabille. There was a creeping sense of guilty and duty betrayed that weighed on her however. She felt as if she might have done poorly by Kahlan, and she knew for a wrenching fact that she had breached the bond of trust between herself and Richard.

But the gentle rise and fall of Kahlan's bare breasts pulled Cara's mind away from Richard. The soft smell of sex sharpened her appetite. She wanted more, though she knew she was a horrible person for it. And knowing herself as she did, she knew she would have more, though it would be the end of all her attempts at being a better person.

She leaned down, sucking one of Kahlan's taut nipples into her mouth, causing the other woman to shiver and sigh softly. The brunette was still too deep in her post-orgasmic afterglow to protest. There were so many things – so very many obscene things – that Cara still wanted to do. She nibbled lightly on the hardened peak, contemplating what exactly she wanted to do next when a loud screeching alarm cut into the quiet night.

The ululating noise came out of a box near the ceiling in the entryway that Cara had recently installed; it was set off by the pressure sensor pads that she had carefully installed under each of the ground floor windows. Painstakingly she had kicked dirt over them, arranged the bushes around them exactly until she was absolutely certain that they were invisible. Especially in the dark.

She sprung away from Kahlan, grabbing a knife out of the wooden knife block on the counter on her way to the door. There was a Mord-Sith outside. She could feel it, sending her skin crawling. Her sisters had finally come for her, and while she couldn't help to stop them all with a chef's knife, she could certainly buy Kahlan time to escape. Maybe once they had her, they would be content to ignore the other woman.

"Cara!" A sing-song voice, hardened to be heard over battle, blended with the alarm's noise, calling from outside.

She hit the reset button on the alarm box as she made it to the front door, quieting it. Opening the door into the darkness was a mistake, with her eyes accustomed to the lighted interior. She turned off the foyer's light and waited, breathing softly, for her eyes to dilate.

Behind her in the kitchen she could hear Kahlan moving around, probably settling her clothing, and if she was smart, finding a place to hide.

"Cara!" The voice from outside called again, but she waited several more minutes as the shadowy outlines of furniture and walls began to appear. Her eyes were ready, her adrenaline had reached an appropriate level, but all the good warrior sense in her deplored allowing her enemy to choose the time and place of their battle so she hesitated a moment longer.

She closed her eyes tightly, adjusted her grip on the knife and counted to ten under breath. With an explosive burst of energy she kicked through the door and darted left, barely dodging the bullet that slammed into the doorframe. She tucked and rolled into the bushes, catching herself on her free palm before pushing herself into a sprint, running parallel to the wall of the house behind the neat line of bushes that Kahlan or more probably her grandmother had planted. Bullets tore along behind her, exploding against the wood as each one missed. Without warning she reversed direction and flattened herself onto the ground. The firing stopped – whoever the sniper was, and wherever they were, they had lost the bead on her.

"Oh Cara, you vixen. Why don't you come on out and we can all handle this like the reasonable adults we are. I've just come so you can make amends for your dreadful sins against your sisters and your country. Its really more than a traitor like you deserves." Cara pegged the voice finally, the lilting accent and the sing-song cadence. Denna. They had sent the best after her, and she was not too annoyed to be rather flattered by the fact. If they had sent Trianna, or God forbid that awful Garen, she would have felt deeply offended.

She didn't take the bait and respond. Denna would be able to track her voice and line up a kill shot, so instead she lay in the cool dirt and waited patiently for the other woman to tip her hand. There would be an opening – there always was. Young soldiers made the mistake of thinking that battles were fought at the speed of bullets, they weren't. Battles were fought at whatever speed you allowed them to be. Cara would drag this out into the morning if she could. She was in no rush to die. Not when she had a million things left to do to Kahlan.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: but it was not your fault but mine and it was your heart on the line I really fucked it up this time**

Adrenaline overtook arousal as her intimate connection with Cara was broken. She rolled off the table, clutching what was left of her clothes around her. Kahlan grew up in rural Montana, she recognized the sound of high caliber rifle shots when she heard them. Cara hadn't been completely paranoid – someone was trying to kill her. Kahlan would feel guilty about her lack of trust later, however. Now she needed to find her way to the bedroom and her gun safe. She was not exactly a gun nut, but you couldn't grow up in Aydindril, a stalwart outpost of the Second Amendment, without owning at least one gun. Kahlan kept her mother's old .22 in the safe for hunting.

Sticking low to the ground and avoiding the windows, Kahlan crept through the house. Muscle memory led her safely around the furniture in the dark. The stairs creaked, but the sound was muffled compared to the sharp crack of bullets splintering the siding of her house. The continued hail of gunfire was actually comforting – their unseen attacker would not still be shooting if Cara were dead.

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by the time Kahlan made it to her room. The gun safe opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges. Kahlan grabbed the rifle and a box of bullets before sidling toward her window. It was her favorite view in the house, offering her the warm morning sun and a view of her well manicured lawn and the quiet main street of Aydindril with rolling hills behind. Now everything was eerily dark outside the window. The streetlights were still out. And where was Sheriff Brandstone? Their attacker was not being particularly quiet.

She settled her back against the wall and braced the rifle between her knees. It held ten shots in the magazine in the butt. Each bullet slid into place easily. Just like hunting quails, Kahlan assured herself, big blood-thirsty sniper quails. The rifle shots stopped and she could hear muffled yelling outside, though she couldn't make out the words. Betting that their attacker was now distracted, she took the opportunity to raise the window sash and set the barrel of her weapon on the sill.

Where were they being sniped from? Close enough they could be carrying on a shouted conversation with Cara. Snipers always worked from a high point, at least in movies. There were two houses nearby, one on each side of the street. If the sniper were operating from a house, they were either on the roof or in an upper story window.

She glanced down, her eyes caught by movement in the front yard. A flash of blonde was dashing out of the bushes and toward the house on the left. Desperate to provide cover fire, Kahlan aimed at one dark window and squeezed the trigger. The glass exploded. Trying to calm her shaking hands, she ejected the empty shell and aimed at the next window. Another pane of glass shattered. There was no return fire.

She prepared for her next shot, tracking Cara as she crossed the sidewalk and threw her shoulder into the house's door. Then she was gone. Kahlan didn't want to accidentally catch Cara with a bullet. She had done what she could.

Blowing out a long, uneven breath she turned and slid her back down the wall until she was sitting on the floor again.

When had her life become some sort of Sapphic Call of Duty? She hit the safety on her rifle with her thumb. The phantom of Cara's caresses was still on her heated skin. If anything, the danger and adrenaline had rekindled her arousal. She licked her lips, tasting Cara there. She was in a lot of trouble.

And then her bedroom door was kicked open and she was in even more trouble. Two women in blood red military uniforms, sporting night vision goggles and wielding wicked assault rifles, burst in. Before she could even lift her weapon, one of the soldiers was pressing a taser to her neck. Oblivion reached up and pulled her down into the darkness. _Of course, wolves hunt in packs _– the last thought that passed through her conscious mind.

Darkness surrounded her – a blackness so deep she despaired of ever clawing her way out. Panic seized her lungs. There wasn't enough air. The world was closing in. She was being smothered by the lack of light. She tried to kick, to thrash and break out of it only to find that she was bound. Immobile. Slowly, slowly, her heart calmed. It was a hood over her face; she could detect the rough texture and the weight of the material. She was being jostled around as if in a car on a back road. Time lost meaning with no external markers by which to judge its passage. She was transferred roughly from the vehicle into another seat. She felt the pressure of take off. She must be in an airplane.

It didn't take long, somewhere in the car, that she began to hallucinate. At first she had tried to keep her eyes closed behind the blindfold or mask, and concentrate on her breathing. She couldn't, however, there was too much turmoil inside of her. With her eyes open, the absolute darkness wreaked havoc on her brain. Visions of Cara, mouth and chin wet from Kahlan's arousal, gazing up the length of her nude body to make eye contact as she spiraled down from her climax tormented her. At first it was just Cara in her kitchen, kneeling in front of the table, like they had been right before they were rudely interrupted. But then it began to change – a new location with every permutation, as if Cara would be with her no matter where she was forever.

The pictures dancing before her blinded eyes were almost comforting, before they slowly were replaced by Richard. Richard looking disappointed. Richard shouting, maybe crying. Richard with an intense look of betrayal in his usually soft eyes. At least, the likelihood of her surviving this kidnapping seemed slight. She would never have to explain to Richard what she had done with his best friend. What she wanted to do again.

**CHAPTER TWELVE: I want to reconcile the violence in your heart, I want to recognize your beauty is not just a mask**

The interior of the house was eerily quiet. At first Cara wondered where the family that lived there had gone, but the sticky footprints that led up the stairs were a dead giveaway – literally. Cara expected nothing else from Denna. She adjusted her grip on the handle of the kitchen knife. Denna had undoubtedly tracked her movement into the house, even with Kahlan's surprising cover fire. The Mord-Sith would be prepared, or had already made good her escape.

She didn't bother to disguise the sound of her footsteps as she walked with a measured tread up the stairs. Let Denna hear how unafraid she was, how totally unaffected she had been by Denna's assault. Denna had made no effort to cover her trail either. The bloody footsteps lead down the upper hallway and into the master bedroom, though what lay inside Cara couldn't see since the door was firmly closed.

She paused, leaning her shoulder against the door frame and listening intently. No sound. She licked her lips, tightened her grip on the knife again and then spun, slamming the heel of her bare foot into the door just above the latch, sending it crashing off of its hinges. Splinters flew through the air as Cara dashed into the room, hoping to use the chaos as cover. There was a figure by the window, and Cara charged, knife slashing only to have her arm caught at the wrist. Denna snapped Cara's wrist neatly, followed by an elbow to the face that sent her opponent sprawling, blood streaming from her broken nose.

"Shit, Denna," Cara screamed in rage. She cradled her arm to her body, retreating to try to find a better footing and a new opportunity for attack. "Is that the way you greet all beautiful women?"

"Not so beautiful anymore," Denna snorted. She was edging around Cara, moving to subtly block her exit.

"Matter of opinion," Cara glanced back and forth between Denna and the knife where it had fallen on the floor. There was no sign of Denna's sniper rifle. She must have broken it down and stowed it while she waited for Cara to arrive. Denna was always efficient and prone to showing more affection to her weapons then she did to her lovers. Cara had some firsthand knowledge. "Frankly I think blood red is my color."

Denna reached behind her, smoothly unholstering her Agiel from its place nestled in the small of her back. She pointed the gun at Cara, aim unwavering. Cara visibly flinched. "Then maybe you shouldn't have pissed on your uniform and walked away from your country."

"Maybe," Cara shrugged her good shoulder, feigning nonchalance. There was no way out. She could only hope now that Denna was interested in her, and not in Kahlan. Her mind was a whirl and there was a grinding sense of anxiety growing deep in her belly. If only Denna would lower the gun she would be able to regain her equilibrium.

"Don't worry though, Cara, because I know just the thing we can do for you." The smile that Denna flashed her nearly froze the blood in her veins. Denna was quick, one of the fastest Cara had ever seen in hand to hand combat. She tried to block the blow, but her injured wrist made her defense ineffectual. Denna brought the butt of the gun down hard into Cara's face. Her world exploded into light and pain. Then it went dark.

But not for long.

Cara woke up as she was being dragged by her legs through the front yard of the house that she had just fought Denna in. Two soldiers in blood red uniforms and full black face masks were holding her ankles. Her hands had been handcuffed behind her back. The back of her t-shirt had torn open and she could feel cuts and contusions from the rough handling. She caught sight of a hooded figure similarly bound being drug out of Kahlan's house before she was tossed in the trunk of a black sedan.

They had Kahlan. And now she was really mad.

The trip in the trunk jostled her many wounds. Even for a woman that had been disemboweled at one point and generally enjoyed a good fight, the pain was becoming excruciating. Relief washed over her when the car ground to a stop and the trunk was popped open. Denna's smiling face blocked Cara's view of the starry night sky. "We've arrived, Cara. I hope you like it here."

Roughly she lifted Cara out of the trunk and dropped her sprawling on the gravel. The car was parked on an empty stretch of gravel road, surrounded on all sides by trees. The smell of pine permeated the air. Before Cara could orient herself, Denna yanked her to her feet and forced her off the road and down into the trees. Not for away, there was a small clearing. Sticking out of the ground in the very center was a shovel.

"What the hell is your game?" Cara snarled, her voice slightly muffled by her broken nose.

"No game." Denna unlocked Cara's handcuffs, letting the metal manacles fall to the ground and then placed the barrel of her Agiel against the base of Cara's skull. "Just dig your own grave."

"This is going to be a bit slow." Cara was frustrated how her voice cracked at the feeling of the weapon digging into her neck. She took measured steps from the edge of the clearing to the shovel and picked it up. She had to rely on her left hand more; her right one throbbed with the pain from her wrist which had begun to swell alarmingly.

"I've got all night. And do a nice job. I'd hate to think you'd have a sloppy resting place. You were always so precise," Denna nearly whispered the words directly into Cara's ear. Cara wished that she could punch the other woman, but the time was not right for retaliation. If she pretended to comply with Denna, at least for now, she could hope to come up with a reasonable escape plan. She had no intention of dying in the woods in a god-forsaken place like Montana. And she had no intention of being killed by fucking Denna. Never let yourself get executed by an ex, that was one of Cara's mottos.

Digging hurt - a lot - But Cara never did anything half-assed, even digging her own grave. She worked for about an hour, digging several feet down to create a rectangular hole about six feet by three feet. Denna watched from several feet away, gun trained on Cara the entire time. She set her foot to the top of the shovel, preparing to cut down for another scoop of dirt when she heard the first noise. A rustling disturbed the underbrush in front of her. She swore she could see a shadow move.

She didn't want to alert Denna, perhaps whatever was out there would provide the distraction she needed to finally finish the other woman off. Then she could climb in her car, and find wherever they took Kahlan, brutally murder her kidnappers and convince the brunette to forget that she had ever heard about anyone named Richard. She tossed the shovel-full of dirt onto the growing pile and bent back to her task.

Another twenty minutes went by, or so Cara calculated, without any more strange noises. She was about to chalk it up to a random animal when it happened again – a rustling and the faint movement of shadows, this time off a little to her right. Now she was certain, with the bone-deep knowledge of a natural warrior – Denna was being flanked from the trees.

Two more loads of dirt hit the pile before the first shot. Whoever was in the trees was using a silencer. Just the thrum of moving air warned of the lethal projectile's approach. Denna was more alert than Cara had credited her for. She hit the ground, causing the bullet to miss its mark in the center of her forehead. Instead it grazed across her cheek, creating a blossom of angry red.

Cara seized her chance, spinning on her heels and swinging downward with the shovel at Denna's prone form. The Mord-Sith rolled out of the way and Cara's weapon thumped into the ground. Camouflaged figures burst from the treeline in every direction, closing in on the two women. Cara couldn't care less, she was intent on some well deserved revenge. She brought her heel down sharply into Denna's sternum before kicking her sharply in the side of the head. By the time the soldiers made it to her, Denna was out cold.

They were American soldiers, that much was immediately obvious from the equipment and cut of their uniforms, though they lacked insignia. The squad formed a loose circle around Cara and her fallen adversary. Presumably their leader, stepped forward, reaching up to peel his night vision goggles off and reveal his face.

"A pleasure to see you again, Miss Mason. You've looked better." Richard Rahl tucked the goggles under one arm and put his other hand out to squeeze Cara's shoulder. He was wearing one of his trademark ridiculously goofy grins – a little boy playing soldier, was what Cara had always pictured looking at him. Except he had a terrifying capacity for anger.

She reached up, running the back of her hand across her face, smearing the blood from her shattered nose. "Well, you're late Cypher, or I'd be looking a hell of a lot prettier."

"There was a kitten stuck in a tree. That's why we got delayed."

"I sure fucking hope you're joking," Cara snarled.

Richard just responded with his smile and turned back to his men. He quietly issued orders and the soldiers began to clean up. Two bound Denna while a third checked her vital signs. Certain that Denna wouldn't die before she could be interrogated, the medic turned his attention to Cara. He shot her full of some kind of pain killer and splinted her wrist. She took it all quietly, watching Richard with hooded eyes as he talked on the radio. The medic circled her and gingerly pulled her shirt fragments out of the wounds on her back. On cue, Cara registered his sudden stillness followed by the quiet gasp he couldn't quiet swallow. Most people reacted to the scarring along her back like that. Extensive cosmetic surgery had been performed to make her abdomen look smooth again after her unfortunate brush with death, but the lash marks that criss-crossed her back where a constant reminder of her oath of service. American soldiers weren't trained the same way; she didn't expect the medic to understand.

She didn't say anything to assuage his discomfort and instead allowed him to work in awkward silence. Perversely, it made her feel better.

As the adrenaline drained away, the full magnitude of the situation encompassed Cara. She was in love with her best friend's wife who had just been kidnapped in the middle of lust-fueled sexcapades on her kitchen table only to be rescued from certain death by said best friend. Her mind circled Kahlan, and a feeling akin to sickness and panic welled up in her chest. If Denna had ordered Kahlan to be hurt – she would personally kill the woman.

Richard finally turned back to Cara from his radio, face grim, as the medic finished up. "Did you get Kahlan?" The words exploded out of Cara. She hadn't meant to ask so directly or sound so desperate.

"We missed them. The Air Force is tracking the flight right now, but they won't be able to intercept it."

"They're taking her out of the country?" Cara's heart dropped into her stomach. She knew just where Kahlan was going, and just what waited for her there.

The woman she loved was going to pay for her sins.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Forget about our mothers and our friends, We're fated to pretend**

"I'm not entirely sure you understand the gravity of your situation, so I'll try explaining it to you again. This time slower. I'm worried that maybe you don't understand English." The dark haloed face swam in and out of Kahlan's vision. The length of her trip and the full-body beating that occurred as soon as she arrived at what she assumed was her final destination, made it tough to really focus. She was tied to a chair in the middle of a dark concrete room. Only a bare bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling illuminated the space. Really, it was all too cliché for Kahlan's taste – as if she were watching a bad movie. Even the accents were a little ridiculous. The woman interrogating her had the same foreign lilt to her voice as Cara did, but her English was not as crisp.

Her dark hair was pulled back into a long braid that she twisted in her hands every time she appeared to become frustrated with Kahlan's lack of responsiveness – which was often. She was also wearing a uniform that Kahlan recognized as similar to the one that Cara had been wearing in her photo with Richard. The tailoring and insignia reminded her a little of a Nazi stormtrooper.

"You are going to do what I say. And tell me what I want to hear." The woman paused menacingly as she leaned over Kahlan. "Or I am going to make you beg for a death that I will never grant. I will pluck out each eyeball. Cut off each finger, each toe. Then I will begin skinning you, starting with your pretty long legs."

Kahlan blanched and tried to avoid developing a mental picture to match the words. She licked her cracked lips. Forming words hurt, mentally and physically, but maybe the woman would believe her this time.

"I don't know anything. I don't know about Cypher or Operation Seeker. Cara didn't tell me anything. I thought she was just a friend of my husband's, and I thought my husband was just a regular soldier. You people are the first I've heard differently."

Wrong answer. The dark haired woman's fist connected with the side of Kahlans's face before she could recognize that it was moving. The blow knocked her sideways and bound she had no way of catching herself. Instinctively she tucked her chin which probably saved herself from a nasty headwound as the chair tipped over onto the floor.

"I am going to start really hurting you!" Boots clicked against the pavement as her tormentor circled around toward her back. Her muscles tightened up, anticipating more pain.

Outside of her range of vision, the door opened. She could hear a new set of footsteps and the door closed brusquely. "That won't be necessary, Trianna. I think I can handle things from here." The newcomer sounded jarringly American.

Kahlan and her chair were righted. There was a blonde, hair scrapped back into a tight bun, wearing a sharply tailored black suit standing next to the soldier now. Trianna hesitated and opened her mouth like she was about to argue.

"Yes, yes, Trianna. I'm aware. You're still terribly hurt about Cara's betrayal. Oh, boohoo for you." The blonde pointed at the door. "I don't care about your feelings. You should be ashamed that you are letting them show. You will not compromise my operation just to make a punching bag out of your old flame's new fuck." Angry red rose in Trianna's cheeks at the words but before she could try to protest again, the blonde roared: "GET OUT!"

Irrational relief flooded Kahlan with Trianna's exit, and in one of those cognitive quirks that marks human psychology, the blonde came to embody that relief in that moment.

"Really, I don't know anything," Kahlan offered, trying to sound helpful and sincere.

"Trianna is a petty little fool," the blonde wave her hand dismissively as she knelt, so that her face was level with Kahlan's. "She wants to hit you. Because Cara used to fuck her, and then she threw her away like trash."

The language and the rather unflattering portrayal of her recent lover's behavior made Kahlan visibly flinch. All she had ever known Cara as was as a strong, silent but strangely comforting presence in her life – and as a passionate lover. Certainly, she had realized that Cara was running from the bad things she had done, but everyone could change.

"But, you see, it isn't about what you know. You're a country bumpkin, I understand that. You have a pretty face so people with important secrets like to kiss it. As a source of information, though, you're really not useful." If Kahlan weren't tied up, she would have hit the other woman for that remark. Instead she had to resort to making a rather angry face. "No, you're important because important people want you. They want you desperately. And they'll do stupid things to get you back."

The blonde abruptly stood. Their conversation must be at an end. "I'll have Raina move you to a cell so you can sleep for now. It will take at least two days for Cypher and Cara to arrive. I promise, we'll keep you in style."

"As long as your style is silent. I'm fucking tired of listening to you people jabber," Kahlan finally snapped. She really missed how quiet Cara could be. Her only response was the blonde's crisp laughter over her shoulder as she exited. If these people were going to be her company for the next couple of days, she would have to find a way to escape before Cara and Richard could rescue her.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Sick for days, so many ways, I'm aching now, I'm aching now**

"Richard, I had sex with your wife."

"Since we're going to be risking our lives together again, and since you saved me that one time, I think you deserve to know that I made love to your wife, Richard."

"Dick, I had your wife on your kitchen table."

"I fucked Kahlan, Richard. And I'd really like to do it again. I'm not really into guys, but if I'd make you feel better, I'd let you watch."

Cara scrubbed her hands across her face. Tension was building up in the muscles of her neck and across her shoulders, knots of pain that she couldn't shake out. Emotions were tricky things. For someone like Cara, who spent a lot of time avoiding hers, reading the subtle clues about other people's emotional states was nearly impossible. Frequently she was forced to rush in, and clean up the damage afterward. Tact was for people that didn't have reoccurring nightmares about seeing their own intestines.

"And I think she liked it. I mean, I didn't take her by force or anything. But, I'm awfully sorry." How did you sound sorry when you weren't really? Oh, she was sorry that Richard's wife was so damn irresistible, but she wasn't sorry that she had failed to resist. No matter how much it hurt Richard, Cara couldn't regret any of the time she had spent with Kahlan. She couldn't regret knowing what Kahlan's sweat tasted like, or the way her arousal smelled, or the way her pupils dilated and turned her eyes dark as she climaxed.

"Maybe you should find yourself another wife, and I'll keep this one."

She shook her head. None of it would do. There just weren't the right words to tell him. Everything sounded horrible, shockingly painfully horrible. Wasn't there a way to be casual when discussing adultery? She shook her head at her reflection in her sunglasses which she held in her lap to allow herself to practice a contrite expression, and then slipped them back on to shield her eyes. The cargo bay of the jet was huge and full of the sound of engines. Richard was up front with the pilot as they made their final approach into Hartland Forward Operating Base.

The entire plane ride she had sat, her back against one giant crate of munitions, and tried to figure out what exactly was going on. Oh, she definitely knew that the Mord-Sith had come to take their due, and decided to kidnap Kahlan along with it – but rather what was going on inside of her. Kahlan was a fantastic lay, and you could just tell from looking at her that she could get even freakier, but through their short, largely quiet cohabitation, she had come to mean something to Cara.

And that meant there would have to be a reckoning.

If any of them came out of this alive.

"Fuck," Cara braced her arm against the crate beside her to keep from bouncing her skull against it as they taxied into Hartland. Before she could recover her rattled brain, Richard was standing over her, offering his hand to help her up. She took it, grunting something that might have been thanks. He slapped her soundly on the back.

"You're looking a little pale, Cara, the ride not agree with you?" He was so damn friendly, and his smile was killing her.

She bit her lower lip to keep one of her rehearsed phrases from busting loose. Overall, it created a rather constipated look that Richard chose to interpret as illness from the flight. "I'll find you some Pepto soon as we get out of this junker."

The searing noon-day sun hit Cara full in her face. After the weather in Montana, she wasn't really prepared for the blast of dry heat. Kahlan had gotten so far under her skin that her homeland felt foreign. She was in more trouble than she had realized.

They jogged off the shimmering blacktop and ducked into a low slung building. Rattling over-worked air conditioners heated the small, gray interior. Cara recognized the prefabricated design as the one's that the American military used all over the desert. The middle of the room to which Richard led her was dominated by a long conference table, with a single man at the head – the head of Operation Seeker. Cara didn't care much for the aging Colonel whom she considered more of a political animal than a soldier. Not that she hadn't done her fair share of maneuvering, in and out of bed, to arrive at the exalted heights from which she fell – still she remembered what her primary focus in life was – being a warrior.

"Mason," the Colonel stood up and offered her a thin hand which she shook firmly. "Nice to see you again."

She nodded in reply.

Richard and the Colonel were positively verbose as they went over the endless maps and aerial photographs of Codename Temple where Cara was certain they had taken Kahlan. She zoned out. Their plan didn't mean anything to her. She was going to do this her way, which is how she should have handled it in the first place. There wasn't a corner, secret entrance or hole in that fortress that she didn't personally know. The boys were planning to blow shit up, rush in wearing camo with a special ops force. Kahlan would be dead before they breached an exterior wall.

After three or four hours of that absolute crap, Cara yawned exaggeratedly drawing their attention back to her. "Just leave it to me. You guys keep your Green Berets." She stood up. "Now, where's the bed in this place. I need a nap before I go rescue your wife."

Cara adjusted the Agiel at her hip and focused on her breathing. There were far too many guns strapped to her. She had to hold Kahlan's face in her mind's eye to stave off a panic attack as she checked the clip on her rifle and slung it over her shoulder. She filed that fact away for later when she could mull it over more fully. Now it was time to get shit done.

"Locked and loaded?" Cara could never understand why Richard felt the urge to ramble at times like this. "She's going to be alright, right? Sure she will. Maybe I should take her on vacation after this – somewhere warm so she'll have an excuse to wear a bikini." The last thing Cara needed right then was to think about Kahlan in a swimsuit frolicking with Richard on a Caribbean beach.

He continued to chatter. Cara tuned him out. She wished desperately that the Jeep had a radio to drown him out with. On and on he went about Kahlan's many virtues. They were still ten miles out when Cara hit the brakes throwing Richard into the dash. "Shut up. I don't want to hear about your matrimonial angel. If you keep talking, I'm going to drive right into the front of Temple and beg them to shoot me in the head."

Richard gave her a strange look, Cara figured it must mean that she hurt his feelings, but she wasn't going to apologize. They rode in silence, punctuated by the growling of the tires as they spun through the soft sandy spots.

She parked the Jeep in the ravine that Richard had picked from his topographic maps. They covered the vehicle with a desert camo tarp and backtracked along their wheel ruts, brushing them smooth for about a quarter of a mile.

Richard finally broke the silence as they lay at the crest of a dune, studying their approach through field glasses. "Is something wrong?" He asked, glancing over at Cara to gauge her reaction to the question before turning back to his glasses.

"No, nothing. Obviously." Cara could sneer with her voice better than anyone else. She had practically invented it. "I didn't just spend a month in the middle of goddamn nowhere playing house with your mouthy fucking wife only to get attacked by Denna of all worthless excuses for a Mord-Sith and now you've drug me into the damn sand again. And I promised myself I'd never come back here. So, I'm peachy. Actually, I almost feel like breaking into a song and dance number I'm feeling so fine."

That had to be the most she had ever said to Richard at one time. He looked pleased.

"Cara, you know I love you for taking care of her for me, and coming to help me." He reached over to punch her lightly in the shoulder. "You're my best friend."

Too much emotion. Cara was not programmed or equipped to handle it. Guilt filled her mouth with a sour taste of bile.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Rip the earth in two with your mind, Seal the urge which ensues with brass wires**

Kahlan lay stretched out on the narrow bunk bolted to the wall, the only piece of furniture in the small concrete cell, and attuned her senses to her barren surroundings. She grew up in Montana, spent her entire life in a community where hunting was the number one pastime – she knew how to stalk her prey. To keep track of the passage of time, and learn to anticipate Trianna's arrival with her meals, she had begun counting her heartbeats. Another four hundred beats or so until dinner.

The long empty time with nothing to and no one to talk to had forced her once again to confront the reality of her situation. Not once did she consider that she was actually going to rot there, she had far too much confidence in Richard and Cara both for that. Seeing the two of them together though, that was what frightened her. When Kahlan was carried off, she knew the first thing that Cara would do was call Richard. How was she supposed to handle her lover and her husband at the same time? She owed Richard so much, for caring for her, and she made promises to him – the biggest when she married him: love, honor and obey. Sure, no one really took the obey part serious, but love and honor no one could argue with that.

Had Cara mentioned it to Richard? Had Richard noticed something different about Cara? Could he smell Kahlan on her?

Her hands tightened around the strips of sheet she had braided together and twisted tight to make a homemade garrote that she was concealing beneath her head. She looked for all the world as if she was lounging, relaxed, with her hands folded behind her head. Oh, Trianna was going to b e in for the surprise of her life.

Just on time, Kahlan heard the scrape of boots, the clicking of the lock and then the door was opening to admit Trianna. "Come and get your slop, whore," she growled, holding out a paper plate oozing with the goop they had been feeding Kahlan for every meal.

Kahlan didn't move to take it, or even get up. Trianna took a step closer. "Eat your damn food, or I'll knock all the teeth out of your head."Another step brought her into Kahlan's range – thank God for long arms. Trianna had dangerously underestimated Kahlan.

She kicked up, knocking the slop directly into Trianna's face and then lunged, uncoiling from the bed like a snake. Trianna rallied valiantly, swiping at her eyes with one hand and lashing out with the other fist, but Kahlan was behind her, twisting her garrote around the other brunette's neck and forcing her to her knees before she could mount a proper defense. Gurgling noises escaped from Trianna's lips as she struggled to slip her fingers under the sheet and relieve the pressure to no avail. Kahlan shook her once or twice. She hadn't realized how long it took to strangle someone – her arms were beginning to feel weak and she worried she might vomit.

Trianna's struggling faded and she slumped to the side. Kahlan held it for a moment longer and then let the ends of the garrote drop. She breathed in and out quickly, her heart hammering against her ribs. She hoped Trianna was still alive, there was just nothing in her nature that would make her happy to kill, but she was vindictive enough to hope the oxygen deprivation eliminated a few of Trianna's already limited brain cells.

The door was unlocked now, but running through the compound in her dirty, torn up clothes without a weapon was not a reasonable escape plan. She kicked the door closed, after retrieving the keys from the lock. Trianna was heavy and unwieldy, but luckily they were a similar size. In Trianna's uniform with similar dark hair, she hoped that she could pass if she escaped close scrutiny.

She rolled Trianna, now naked, up under the bunk and covered her with what was left of her shredded sheet. The uniform itched; it was tight in places and the weight of the pistol on her hip felt strange. How had Cara done this every day?

The hallway was clear as she slipped out into it and locked the door behind her. She had no idea where she was, how large the building that imprisoned her was, or which way was out but at least she had taken matters into her own hands and she was on her way to freeing herself.

Richard was going to be surprised when he came to save her.

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN: I have no space, no room to move around, And this box is getting smaller, I'm trying to get out**

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Cara ignored Richard's question as she lifted the grating out. It had been a long time since water flowed this way, but the Mord-Sith were not exactly engineers. Temple's foundations were exactly the same as the day they were laid hundreds of years before as a medieval fortress in the time of the Emperor. Cara planned ahead, always, and during her early years as a young officer she had made a point of researching the original blueprints of the building. The lower levels were largely out of use; the military had decided that wiring and plumbing them to make them sufficiently useful was not cost effective. The upper levels had been changed, remodeled and retrofitted over and over during the long history f use, and today was the central command post for the Mord-Sith division.

Centuries before, a stream had run under the Temple, which had been part of the original strategic reason for its placement. Long ago, the stream had been diverted for farming and the like and now only a dry channel ran under the Temple but the tunnel through which it had passed was never closed up. Why bother? No one was stupid enough to want to get _into _a building full of Mord-Sith. Hubris was perhaps the most glaring of the Mord-Siths' sins.

Richard followed her in, and waited crouched and fiddling with his flashlight while she leaned the grate back against the opening. If someone inspected it, there would be no question it was tampered with, but it was unlikely that anyone would come by.

They traveled through the dark tunnel silently, stepping over dead rats and following the wavering beam of light that Richard held. Eventually the tunnel reached a T-junction. Both directions looked the same as the way they had come, and Richard was just opening his mouth to ask the obvious question when Cara pointed at the wall directly in front of them. Carved into the old stone were hand and footholds – a crude ladder.

"Up," she explained simply.

"Wait," Richard held up his hand. In the shadows, Cara could just make out his expression and what she saw made her want to hit him in the face. It was his mooncalf look. "Cara, what if…" His voice got low and rough as it trailed off. Shit, was he going to cry? The United States Army did not do sufficient psychological testing in Cara's opinion.

"What if what?" Cara sounded harsher than she meant.

"You know," he almost whispered.

"What if Kahlan has grown a tail?" Cara turned away from him, setting her fingers in the first indentations. The climate was dry, so she didn't have to deal with slime like she might have in other conditions. She hoisted herself up high enough to reach for the next one. "Or, what if I kick you in the head for being such a self-involved ass? If you don't hurry up, Kahlan will have died of old age before you can sweep in and make your heroic entrance."

That quieted him. She could hear his boots scrape as he climbed behind her. The hatch leading from the drainage tunnel into the lower level was further up than Cara had anticipated. The strap of her rifle pulled unpleasantly at her shoulder as she lifted her arm and flexed her shoulders. In the back of her mind she dreaded the moment they reached Kahlan. Her mind's eye constructed a truly disgusting image of Richard rushing into the room, after she had done all the work to get them too their target, sweeping Kahlan off her feet in a ridiculously romantic gesture that was sure to put all thoughts of Cara and the time they had spent together right out of her mind.

"You know, Cypher, if you wanted to wait here, I could extract the target. That way if something happens, we don't both hang." It was worth a shot.

"I have your back, Cara. Always. I wouldn't let you take my bullet to save my wife." He sounded so damn sincere that Cara contemplated letting her foot slip loose from the hold and take out his nose with her heel. Her temper was growing fouler by the moment.

"You're such a damn hero." She growled over her shoulder at him.

"So are you," he answered cheerfully.

She was thankful that they reached the top. One more moment and she wouldn't have been able to control her foot. She shouldered the hatch open, sliding it carefully along the ground, and climbed up and out into a disused hallway. She slid her rifle down her arm and into her hand, prepared for the worst, as she bent down to help hoist Richard up the last few steps.

The difference that came over Richard in moments like this shocked Cara. For the most part, Richard acted like a large, shaggy mutt. You could kick it, or give it a treat, either way it would stare at you with big eyes and lick your hand. Except when, whether by training a quirk of temperament, he became an unstoppable soldier.

He slung his weapon down, grasping it tightly and dropped into a half crouch. Cara led the way, following from memory the long ago paths she had traced on the blueprints. They had reached the base of the stairway that would lead them onto the main level when a rush of boots and shouted orders drew them both up short. They crouched, weapons readied, against the corner. The sounds were drawing nearer. And then suddenly whatever the racket was burst onto the stairs they were preparing to ascend.

Cara peered carefully around the corner. One Mord-Sith in full uniform was barreling down the stairway, long hair loose behind her, chased by a quad who all seemed to be shouting at the top of their lungs. The escaping Mord-Sith swung around the corner and straight into Cara as she was pulling back. The two tumbled to the floor as Richard sprang into action, vaulting over the pile of humanity and aiming a spray of bullets into the stairwell that sent the pursuers hastily retreating.

Cara shouted, struggling with the woman on top of her. Punches, elbows, teeth and hair pulling resulted as they rolled on the floor, fighting for dominance. Richard held off a further advance by strafing the stairs every time he caught the slightest movement. It took only a few moment for Cara to finally gain the upper hand, pining her opponents arms with her knees and pushing her thumbs into her throat. Cara laughed triumphantly, gazing down at her vanquished opponent with hard eyes.

"KAHLAN?" she screamed the name, transfixed by the vision of her lover beneath her. Instantly her hands flew away from her neck. The brunette lay beneath her, no longer struggling as recognition dawned on her face.

"Cara?"

"We were just coming to rescue you, sweetheart," Richard shouted over his shoulder before releasing another hail of gunfire.

"I rescued myself," Kahlan laughed softly. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. She had been running for sometime apparently, but the feel of her beneath Cara was seductive. The heat radiated up from her body and through Cara's pants directly to her groin. Mentally she smacked herself. Getting aroused during a firefight was just typical.

Cara hesitated longer than strictly necessary before rolling off Kahlan and helping her to her feet. "Back through the tunnel, quickly." She didn't wait to see if Richard followed her, trusting him to protect their back as she grabbed Kahlan's arm and drug her back down the twisting hallways.

Bullets ricocheted off the walls around them as the quad finally pulled itself together and gave chase, Agiels out. Nausea rose in Cara's stomach as the rush and whine of the projectiles' passage surrounded her. Her vision grew blurry at the edges as her heart rate accelerated out of control.

Now was not the time to lose her shit. She knew it. How badly would she be embarrassed if she launched into a full scale panic attack in the middle of rescuing her lady love? Pretty fucking badly, and then she would have to kill all the witnesses to protect her reputation and she was almost certain she would never meet another woman with an ass like Kahlan's – it would be a shame to have to kill her for reputation's sake.

When they made it to the hatch, Cara dropped in first, landed on bent legs to absorb the bone-rattling shock. Her ankles burned in protest, but there wasn't enough time to climb down.

"Jump, I'll catch you!" Cara called up to Kahlan whose face was just visible peering down at her. The sharp report of Richard's weapon was a constant reminder of their heavily armed adversaries.

"Don't drop me," Kahlan shouted back.

"I promise." She did her best to project strength and sincerity.

Apparently it worked because Kahlan's face disappeared for a moment, and then she was falling through the air. Her weight landed awkwardly across Cara's arms, driving her to one knee as she struggled to stay upright. Kahlan instinctively wrapped her arms around Cara's shoulders. Their faces were inches apart. The blonde could feel Kahlan's breath against her lips. For a moment they were in their own world and it took every ounce of willpower Cara possessed not to lean the short distance to capture Kahlan's lips with her own.

"That uniform looks terrible on you." She sounded breathy, and the words came out almost a purr. She just couldn't seem to control herself.

"Thanks," Kahlan replied with an unrestrained smile, a blush rising on her cheeks.

"Really terrible. You'd be better off running around naked."

Richard thumped heavily to the floor behind them. No one had moved to catch him. Cara didn't feel bad at all. His unceremonious landing did, however, break the mood. Kahlan scrambled out of Cara's arms to her feet. Cara's knees protested the battering they had taken, but she pushed herself upright, grabbed Kahlan and headed down the tunnel. The passage was faster the second time and they reached the grate just as their adversaries descended into the depths.

They burst out of the tunnel into the blinding wasteland of searing sun and sand, just as a round of gunfire was unleashed behind them. A bullet brushed Cara's ear, drawing blood along the earlobe and sending her spinning into Kahlan. The two nearly fell but for Kahlan's own dexterity in keeping them upright. Richard turned and planted his feet to return fire.

One of the quad dropped, blood blossoming from her stomach – the crimson nearly invisible against her uniform. Cara recovered her footing and pushed Kahlan away from her. "Run!" She ordered before reaching back to grab Richard's shirt and fling him after the brunette.

There were some things about her plans she had seen fit to keep from Richard, with what she considered good reason. One of those things was the remote-detonation anti-personnel mines she had sunk into the ground along the path between the Temple and their Jeep while he was taking a ridiculously long time on the radio and the Colonel.

Certain that Richard and Kahlan were clear, she fingered the device in her pocket and set off the first wave of explosions. One of the quad was immediately flattened by the rush of fire that plumed in front of her. The other two were blown away, landing on their backs.

Cara laughed softly to herself as she turned, jogging after her friends. They reached the Jeep, Cara slid into the driver's seat while Richard solicitously helped Kahlan into the back.

"Come on, come on," the blonde shouted, rushing Richard who was taking too fucking long playing Romeo with his newly recovered wife.

The tires threw up sand as the Jeep tore away, leaving the Temple and only one of Cara's many nightmares behind. She could tell from Richard's dewy eyes, that another nightmare was only just beginning.

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: We're bound to wait all night, She's bound to run amok, Invested enough in it any how, To each his own, The garden needs sorting out**

Richard pressed against her side, stroking her thigh, running his fingers through her hair, resting his arms around her shoulder. It felt as if he was touching her all the time, afraid she might have ceased to be corporeal at some point. She felt relieved that Cara was not sitting in first class with them to watch as he leaned in to nuzzle her neck. Every so often he murmured her name, just her name and nothing more. She smiled, a little strained, when the stewardess complimented them on being such a handsome couple. The flight felt interminable.

She had been rushed, following their return to Hartland, into some sort of debriefing procedure. She could tell them nothing except that Mord-Sith were terrible cooks, had uncomfortable uniforms and really liked to hit people. She assumed that none of that was news. Her head had only just stopped spinning when Richard pushed her into a shiny black Humvee and whisked her to a waiting Army jet, where they flew, accompanied by a silent and stony-faced Cara to Rammstein in Germany where they caught a commercial flight back to the States. Where she was sitting. Trying to keep herself from slapping Richard's hands. Trying to keep from asking to see Cara.

She appreciated Richard's presence and his love. Following her kidnapping and abuse, it almost felt smothering, though. She need time and space to recover herself.

She couldn't contain her sigh of relief when they touched down in Helena. Richard solicitously carried her single small carry-on bag with the spare set of clothes they had picked up for her in Germany. Cara had followed them around the shopping district, looking jumping and glaring at everyone that got too close, but Kahlan couldn't honestly remember the last word that she had heard Cara say. The blonde had been struck mute.

Cara didn't accompany them to Aydindril. She got a rundown motel room on the outskirts of Helena and wrote the phone number for the place on the back of a receipt for Richard. He carefully slipped it into his wallet. If the two spoke, they didn't do it in front of Kahlan, who stood in the doorway of the fleapit feeling lost. And then Richard was leading her back to the rental car, whistling to himself. They barely spoke at all during the drive to Aydindril. He commented on the weather and made small talk about old movies. She held his hand. She told herself over and over that she loved him.

He helped her clean up the house, spending a whole afternoon patching the bullet holes in the siding while Kahlan swept out and aired the interior. Her hands shook when she wiped down the kitchen table. She didn't know where Cara was or what she was doing. It ate at the back of her mind. How long was Cara staying in Helena? Had she already headed somewhere else? Would she ever see her again?

When she tried asking Richard he just smiled and told her not to worry about Cara, the woman was good at taking care of herself. Kahlan certainly didn't think so.

They made love the first night. It wasn't unpleasant, and Kahlan felt safe held tight to Richard's broad masculine chest. She didn't feel as wildly out of control as she had beneath Cara's ministrations. Was she relieved? She didn't know.

The second day was the same as the first, except Kahlan went into the office. The FBI was swarming around City Hall. The Federal government had no interest in a case of terrorism so deep in the American interior gaining media attention. Kahlan could barely summon up the energy to smile at the insipid man in the black suit who talked at her over and over about how she could be prosecuted if she gave interviews.

Her chest felt empty and it ached when she was concentrating on nothing at all. Absently she took to rubbing her fist against her breastbone, trying to relieve the discomfort.

"I have a surprise for you, sweetheart," Richard nearly bounced out of his chair like a small child with excitement when he announced that at dinner that night.

Dinner was extremely uncomfortable for Kahlan. She could not look directly at the surface of the table, which meant she had to make eyecontact with Richard. His sweet cluelessness was the only thing saving her. A more suspicious man would surely have noticed her faint blush. She dropped her spoon into her soup and folded her hands neatly in her lap, preparing for the surprise. Hopefully, it didn't involve munitions or sudden movements.

"I'm going to take you on vacation. Really, like a honeymoon." He leaned forward and reached into his back pocket pulling out a brochure for a beach resort in Florida which he handed to her. "I already made our reservations, and I thought we could head into the city to buy you a nice bikini."

Kahlan visibly blanched as she took the promotional material. A vacation felt like the last thing she needed. She needed to hide in her bedroom and find a secret way to contact Cara or God. Maybe God could tell her what was wrong with her. And if she was in Florida, Cara wouldn't be able to find her. That is, if Cara ever wanted to see her again.

That thought hit her like a hammer blow.

Cara probably didn't want to be Kahlan's piece of ass on the side.

"I don't know, Richard—"

He steam rolled right through her objections. "Kahlan, you would look gorgeous out on the beach. You need to relax. We could go scuba-diving. I'll take you to the nicest restaurants." His eyebrows drew together as he studied her face. "Are you afraid? Afraid someone will hurt you?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Cara was going to come. Like as a bodyguard. I know you're already friends with her, so she won't be intrusive."

Kahlan actually gasped, her fist rising to rub against her breastbone again. She felt positively dizzy. Richard could be worse than a horde of Mord-Sith in his absolute naiveté.

"Have you ever considered that maybe Cara has better things to do than act as our bodyguard while we flit about in the sand and act romantic?"

It was obvious from Richard's facial expression that he had not considered that possibility at all. Not that Richard was mean or unfeeling, just that in many ways he retained the self-centeredness of a young child. Considerations about other people's feelings were several grades above his current level. Before, it had all seemed rather charming. Now, it grated against Kahlan's own finely-attuned empathy.

"Cara's still in Helena, and she hasn't got anywhere else to go. I'm sure she'd love to see you again." He held up his hands in mock surrender. "But I'll call her tomorrow and make sure its okay."

The next day she could only hear one side of the phone conversation. Richard stood in the entryway, corded phone pressed to his ear while Kahlan tried to be inconspicuous about listening from just inside the kitchen. Cara appeared to have assented to his little plan. He grinned the entire time he talked.

And then Kahlan was on another plane. This time carting significantly more luggage – all new beach clothes and necessities that Richard had insisted on buying for her. They didn't meet Cara before boarding, and Kahlan was still so scared to mention her in anything other than passing that she didn't think to ask.

They boarded the plane and where just settling into their seats when Cara stepped through the door. Kahlan lost her breath. The blonde looked wan, but still exquisite. She had leather day bag slung over her shoulder and she was wearing the tightest jeans that Kahlan had ever witnessed – highlighting the flexing muscles of her thighs as she walked. Kahlan couldn't help but stare.

Richard waved and Cara nodded at him as she passed, headed toward the back of the plane. Kahlan wanted to hit him for not paying for Cara to have a first class ticket too, but a fight in the middle of an airplane would be too embarrassing. She would wait until they got to Florida.

She listened for the first half of the flight to Richard listing every single thing he wanted to eat and drink once they finally arrived. It only took the tiniest fraction of her brain to keep track of what he was saying. Finally, she excused herself and slipped out of her seat to head for the bathroom.

The center aisle of the plane was small enough that she had to turn her hips sideways occasionally to avoid disturbing the other passengers as she passed. The single bathroom stall was occupied according to the little red plaque above the handle, so she resigned herself to the wait. The bathroom was tucked into an alcove, near where the stewardesses prepared the meals and the drinks they handed out on little metal carts. It was relatively secluded, so standing with her shoulder leaning against the wall left her mostly obscured from passengers, all who were sitting facing away from her anyway.

The sound of sure footsteps over the hum of the jet engines was unmistakable, like her body was perfectly attuned to the rhythm. They stopped just behind her. Cara was so close.

Her body reacted to Cara's presence behind her before her mind fully caught up. She leaned back until she could just feel the heat of the other woman's skin behind her, as if pulled like a magnet, and then snapped her head around – half-afraid she was about to molest a stranger. Cara was smiling at her, hands casually tucked into her pockets.

Words jammed up in Kahlan's throat. Since meeting Cara she had really struggled with an uncharacteristic inability to verbally express herself adequately. The point became entirely moot a moment later when the bathroom's current occupant, an older man, opened the door. He didn't even seem to notice the pair of women as he limped past them, leaving them very much alone in the alcove.

Not unlike the first time, Kahlan wasn't sure if she grabbed the front of Cara's shirt in her fist first, or whether Cara set her hands on her waist and pushed her back toward the bathroom first. The order of events didn't matter much as Cara kicked the bathroom door closed while fumbling with the button of Kahlan's pants. Kahlan clung to the blonde, mouth moving feverishly against hers, moaning softly in the back of her throat at the absolute sensory overload.

The palm of Cara's hand brushed against the skin of her lower belly as the other woman got her pants open enough that she could slide her hand down inside. Kahlan's hips bucked and she was forced to muffle her pleased vocalizations by biting down hard on Cara's neck.

"Oh fuck, Kahlan," Cara groaned. Her free hand came up, wrapping itself in Kahlan's silky hair and pulled her head back, disengaging her teeth. "Don't leave a mark on me. He'll get suspicious."

Of course he wouldn't, Kahlan knew that somewhere far back in that rational part of her mind that had been replaced as the controlling mechanism of her body by her over-zealous reptile brain. Richard was the least suspicious person on the planet, and he'd probably chock it up to Cara getting her card for the Mile High Club stamped by one of the stewardesses. He had mentioned Cara's reputation to her in passing before. The sharp pain radiating across her scalp felt good, though, so she didn't argue. Instead she began to rock her hips against Cara's wandering fingers which were slowly exploring the folds of her sex.

Little gasping noises escaped Kahlan – she felt so thoroughly wanton that just the idea of their entire bathroom encounter mixed with Cara's heated ministrations were sending her rocketing toward a new plane of sexual awareness. Cara's fingers slipped from her hair and down caressing the side of her neck on their way, down between her breasts, down across her stomach to the hem of her shirt. And her shirt was being pulled up, and up until Cara could get her fingers under the edge of Kahlan's bra and lifted until her breasts were free.

Kahlan braced her hands on either side of her against the walls of the narrow bathroom. Cara appeared to appreciate quite fully the free reign that gave her over Kahlan's sweating, aroused body. She slipped two fingers deep into Kahlan's slippery, slick core just at the moment that she bit down on one of Kahlan's hardened nipples. Just a little too hard. It was perfect. She was going to orgasm. Her eyes dropped closed and bright lights played behind her eyelids.

"Kahlan, open your eyes," Cara commanded softly, lifting her mouth from the breast she was tormenting. "Look at me. I want you to look at me when you come." Kahlan immediately opened her eyes, making intense eye contact. "I want you to think about this when you're on the beach with Richard in your little bikini. I want you to remember how tightly my fingers fill you and how quickly you lose control when I touch you."

The words sent Kahlan spinning over the edge to a place where there was no Richard, and Cara was the only thing that mattered. Her inner muscles clenched, gripping Cara's finger and pulled them into her further with each thrust. The sinews in her arms stood out in sharp contrast and she sobbed Cara's name over and over again as she broke.

She finally came down to find herself held tight against Cara whose fingers were still inside of her. She groaned softly, pressing her face into Cara's neck as the blonde slowly withdrew. Much to Cara's shock, if her facial expression was any indication, Kahlan caught Cara's wrist and drew her glistening fingers to her mouth, licking them clean one after the other with deliberately provocative swipes of her tongue.

"You know, Cara, you really should pack," Kahlan whispered directly into her lovers ear, patting Cara's groin to emphasize her point, before slipping around her and out the door. She didn't look back on her way up the aisle and Richard didn't ask what took so long in the bathroom. He was engrossed in the in-flight magazine.

She might be married to Richard, Kahlan mused, but at least Cara seemed to pay attention to her. Richard was not nearly so attentive to her needs, sexual or emotional.

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: You call it chivalry, Never pull a punch for free**

Damn, Cara ran her hand through her hair. - the hand that had been in Kahlan's mouth only a moment ago, and inside of other parts of Kahlan only moments before that. Cara was a big girl. A big, sexually experience girl, but there was something about that woman that she could barely handle. She was right with her first assessment though, Kahlan was too much woman for Richard to handle.

Cara took a moment to check herself in the little, smudged mirror. There weren't any marks on her neck, which was a relief. All of the marks were on the inside – scratches directly on her heart. The long flight, preceded by the long stay in the most boring city in the world, Helena, had forced Cara to take a hard look at herself. She was cuckolding her best friend with the most passionate, beautiful creature on the planet. She was both awesome, for getting into someone like Kahlan's pants, and terrible for doing that to Richard. The tension couldn't last – this was not an equilibrium point but actually the eye of a raging storm. Soon, very soon, they would be moving out of the unnatural calm and into a hurricane.

She flashed a tight smile at the people waiting outside to use the bathroom and made her way back to her cramped seat. The fat man next to her was still snoring, as he had been doing since take-off. Cara had considered taking the peanuts from her complimentary snack and forcing them into the offender's nostrils or trying to drop a few straight back into his open throat so that he would choke. She didn't, however, she hoped he was allergic to peanuts, and rubbed them all over the armrest and his unopened laptop on the tray table in front of him.

Murdering her fellow passengers wouldn't fix the problem. And it was really a very simple problem. To tell Richard that she had been knuckle deep in his wife a couple of times, or not to tell him. She had to pick once and for all. If she told him, maybe they could reconcile their friendship and it could force Kahlan to choose. The problem was, they might not reconcile, Richard might shoot her and Kahlan could very well choose her husband. If she didn't tell him, she wouldn't have to see him cry and she could continue having sex with Kahlan on the sly.

Gooey unpleasant emotions reared their head. She didn't want Kahlan on the sly. For her, at least, it wasn't just about sex. That was a huge part of it, but Cara had never allowed herself to sit for a week in a flea-infested motel in bum-fuck nowhere for any of her other sexual conquests.

She had also never sat on a plane, ridiculously aroused, next to a behemoth for anyone else either.

She spent the rest of the trip flirting shamelessly with the much older stewardess until she got her number. Cara had no intention of calling her. By the time they landed, she felt a bit better.

Cara surfed. She could practically feel Kahlan eyefucking her while she rode the waves. Cara scubadived. She noticed Kahlan licking her lips as Cara shimmied into the form-fitting wetsuit. Cara drank too much. Kahlan wasn't there to witness that.

But the number one thing Cara did for the first three days in Florida was avoid Kahlan and Richard. Whatever Cara had unleashed in the airplane bathroom had apparently reached fruition in the honeymoon suite that Kahlan shared with Richard. They made it out onto the beach for maybe three or four hours a day, and the other twenty or so were spent making what sounded like pretty athletic monkey-love.

So Cara drank in the hotel bar until that got too expensive and she moved to a tourist bar a few blocks down near the beach front. When she got kicked out of there for being fresh with one of the waitresses, she moved to local dive off the beach where the lighting was low and there weren't any waitresses to grope. By the fourth day of drinking too much as soon as the sun set, Cara got in a bar fight.

He was a large, ape of a man with thinning light colored hair covering his knobby skull. Cara had precipitated the confrontation with a few choice remarks about his mother. He did not appreciate the suggestion that his mother's virtue may have been easy enough that he was fathered by a billy goat. Roaring like an enraged zoo animal, he broke his pool cue across the table and charge at her, homemade spear raised.

She was drunk but it had never impaired her fighting ability, and now was no exception. Violence was ingrained in every sinew and fiber of Cara's being. Literally, it had been beaten into her. A roundhouse kick disarmed the man and a solid shot to his solar plexus sent him reeling to his knees, wheezing like a stuck pig.

The natives were getting restless by this time, and Cara beat a hasty retreat. She arrived at her room , adjacent to the honeymoon suite, still pumped with adrenaline and earlier than she had the nights before. It appeared from the extremely loud noises that Richard and Kahlan were mid-coitus.

Cara's beer soaked brain snapped. It was bad enough her friend wanted to rub his happiness in her face by asking her to act like the hired help and make sure nothing happened to him on his little vacation. But he was rubbing it in her face by fucking the woman she loved. Not. Acceptable.

It was this point that a meteorologist could have pinpointed on a weather map as the landfall of Hurricane Mason. She stomped out of her room and down the hall the few steps it took to place her in front of the door to her friends' room. Knocking was for people with manners. Cara would not have allowed herself, under any circumstances, to be considered such a person, especially not at that moment. One well-placed kicked just above the door latch sent the door spinning open.

Richard tangled in the sheets and fell off the bed, effectively exposing a very naked Kahlan. Cara stepped into the room, slamming the door behind her. "Richard. I fucked your wife. More than once. And she liked it." Each word came out louder than the one preceding it. "Now, I would APPRECIATE it if you got a different one, and left this one to me!"


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER NINETEEN: Don't want to hear about it, Every single one's got a story to tell, Everyone knows about it, From the Queen of England to the hounds of hell**

Kahlan's hands went instinctively to cover her breasts exposed as Richard fell tangled in the blanket. She winced in sympathy at the sound of him hitting the floor. But she didn't have time to linger on how he was going to bruise – Cara launched into a drunken tirade that shook her right to the core. She was too disoriented to immediately act. One moment, Richard was above her, grunting and thrusting while she tried her best to stay in the moment and not fantasize about Cara's lips on her breast and her hands between her legs. The next moment, there Cara was, obviously drunk, and spilling all of Kahlan's deepest secrets.

Richard scrambled to his feet, wrapping the sheet around his waist to try to preserve some semblance on modesty. The room was unnaturally quiet for a moment after Cara dropped her bombshell. Kahlan took in a deep breath, trying to figure out something to say to defuse the situation but before she could, Richard exploded.

"What the fuck Cara?" He bellowed. His face turned a shocking shade of red and he was advancing rather menacingly toward the blonde. Kahlan leapt off the bed, racing to restrain him but Cara stopped her with a shake of her head. At least, that's what Kahlan thought it was. Cara could also have been about to throw up – she was pretty drunk. "Do not just fucking kick in my door and say shit like that. Now apologize to Kahlan!"

Kahlan blinked. She was even more confused. Obviously, Richard didn't believe Cara. Which meant, Kahlan could go along with that, pretend none of it ever happened and that Cara was just drunk, or she would have to be the one to disabuse him of his belief in her innocence. She wasn't innocent. Not at all.

"Richard, please can we talk about this without yelling," Kahlan fumbled around on the floor for her clothes. Being naked in the middle of a fist-fight was not exactly her idea of a good time, and it definitely looked like the situation might devolve into violence at any moment. She had one arm into her t-shirt, and was just pulling it down across her face when she heard the impact. Cara had lunged at Richard as he approached, sending them both rocketing backward into the foot of the bed.

Kahlan wriggled around, jamming her other arm into the shirt and scooping up her panties to slip them over her long legs. The surprise attack gave Cara the upper hand, which she was exploiting viciously, raining blows down on Richard pinned beneath her. "I won't apologize to Kahlan for loving her!"

Kahlan froze. Richard didn't. Whether Cara's words or her assault motivated him, Kahlan didn't know, but he summoned his strength and heaved upward with his arms, flinging Cara backwards to land spread-eagle on the floor. The blonde, drunk or not, was surprisingly dexterous; she rolled backward onto her shoulders and then reversed her momentum, leaping to her feet. In a flash, she was on Richard again, fists flying.

The pair rolled around on the floor, punching, kicking and elbowing. Teeth flashed and incomprehensible shouting filled the air. Things were quickly getting out of hand, time for Kahlan to wade into the fray. She separated them, dragging Cara off of Richard with one hand on the back of her shirt and the other wrapped around her belt. For once in her life, Kahlan was glad of her height. The blonde continued to squirm and struggle after she had been pulled away until she seemed to come to herself. When she stopped fighting her, Kahlan dropped Cara heavily on the ground.

"You," She pointed at Cara and then pointed at the door. "Out. We will talk later."

Richard lay on the ground, breathing heavily and bleeding from his potentially broken nose. As little as she wanted to have to handle playing doctor before they could sort everything out, Kahlan needed to make sure he was alright.

Cara left without an argument, but her expression was tight and her eyes hooded. Kahlan was more than a little afraid of what she might do next.

Richard whimpered as Kahlan popped his nose back into line. A fresh drizzle of blood dripped down across his upper lip. She sat back onto her knees, wincing at his obvious discomfort. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, turned to face her while she knelt on the mattress next to him. She handed him a towel to blot at the blood and then slipped off the bed. Physical distance would make the conversation she knew they had to have a little bit easier, she reasoned.

He waited silently for her to speak. The air around them was charged with tension. Richard had tucked the sheet around himself, but Kahlan suspected he may have passive aggressively decided against getting dressed. The silence was undoubtedly working on his conviction that Cara was out of her mind about her allegations.

The silence became weightier, pressing down against Kahlan's shoulders, constricting her chest around her lungs. She drew in a deep breath and turned around. It would be easier to talk with her back to him, she decided. Though, there was only so much that could be done to ease the impact on both of them.

"Richard," she murmured his name, her chin dropping against her chest sending her long brunette hair forward to curtain her face. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" His voice was hard, and while it was phrased as a question it sounded more like a cold statement.

"That you had to find out this way." She was sorry for the pain but she couldn't be sorry for what had occurred with Cara and for the way Cara made her feel. But, this was not the gentle way she had hoped to let him know, and making the decision between the two was not something she really felt ready for yet. The moment had arrived however.

"Find out what way? Your drunken lover, my best fucking friend, interrupting our love making? That way?" She thought she heard tears in his voice, but she couldn't turn around to see. She didn't know what she would do if he was crying. She could imagine the heartbroken look on his face.

The bed squeaked as Richard's weight was lifted off of it. She could hear his heavy tread as he made his way across the plush carpet to her. When his hands landed on her shoulders, she visibly flinched. "Richard," she protested softly as his fingers dug hard into her flesh. "Please, you're hurting me."

In lieu of a verbal response, Richard pushed her. She sprawled forward, catching herself against the edge of the table in front of her and falling to her knees. "Richard—"

"Stop saying my name!" He shouted. His anger was a palpable presence in the room. Kahlan went rigid, afraid of another blow, but unsure if she even had the right to fight back. "Just tell me…just tell me why? Why Cara? When?" The words kept pouring out of him, strangled by his sobs. "Did you like it? Was she better than me?"

"I was lonely, at first. At first it was because I was lonely." Kahlan pushed herself back to her feet by her palms on the table and turned to finally face Richard. Something inside of her chest was hardening, growing colder both weighing her down and simultaneously freeing her. "But then it was because I knew her, and there was something about her that was magnetic to me." She surveyed Richard's tear stained face, contorted in agony. "I thought I knew who I was when I met you."

"But you didn't?" He was still shouting, and each word felt like a physical blow.

"No, Richard, I didn't," she didn't shout in return. A screaming match would just make the entire thing too farcical. "And I didn't know who you were when I agreed to marry you. I was in love with the idea of you, the idea of me being married to you. You were there and it felt special, and before any of that could wear off, you were gone. So I didn't know better."

"You have no idea who Cara is; what she is capable of; what she has done," Richard wrapped his arms around his bare chest and began to retreat, physically and emotionally pulling back from Kahlan. "You'll come back to me." Brick by brick, Kahlan could watch him erect walls around his ego. "Have your little dalliance if you must, but you'll be back."

"Don't you get it, Richard?" The pain was finally completely gone. Richard had made it easier for her then she had imagined, which only served to illustrate how little she actually knew him. "It isn't even just about Cara. She was a catalyst for me to realize the things I needed to realize about myself and about us. I don't need to be a little child, with a girl's fantasy romance with some suave stranger out of a story. Cara might be the worst monster in the world, but she is real. Everything about her since the moment _you _sent her to me has been real. "

There was nothing left to say. She grabbed her shoes as she fled the room before Richard could respond.

**CHAPTER TWENTY: Don't let yourself down, don't let yourself go, your last chance has arrived**

Cara wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, capturing the dribbles of water that escaped the corners of her mouth as she chugged the large glass. Proper hydration is an important component of any hangover avoidance strategy. She was just setting the glass down when a soft knock at the door drew her attention.

She peered through the peep hole and was wholly unsurprised to see Kahlan, looking stern, on the other side. For a moment she contemplated not opening the door. If she never allowed Kahlan to tell her it was over, it never had to be over. She could go on pretending that she was the sort of person that anyone would ever want to love. The knock came again, softly. There was no way to put off the inevitable, and Cara was never one to hide from pain.

She opened the door and stepped back, walking away before Kahlan pushed it open and stepped inside. An apology struggled to claw its way out of her, like Alien, but she valiantly held it in. If Cara Mason was going to be turned down, she sure as shit wasn't going to apologize for anything. She couldn't apologize. She didn't even know how a human did that sort of thing. It was so far outside the realm of her lived experience. While she waited for Kahlan's scathing dismal she tried to dredge up a single memory of herself ever having apologized and failed horribly. She couldn't really come up with a single memory of her ever having loved anyone either. Mostly, the memories she could bring up were about violence, visiting it on people or enduring it being inflicted on herself.

"I need you to hold me."

Cara was already so prepared for some angry outburst that she was halfway through spinning around with her fists already balled before the words sunk in. "You need—" And then Kahlan had launched herself into the smaller woman's arms, clutching her tightly. The feel of her arms, Kahlan's breasts pressed against her own, the smell of her hair – it was nearly too much. Feelings, terrifying feelings, threatened to swamp the boat that was Cara Mason.

"Richard is never going to forgive me," Kahlan spoke directly into Cara's neck where she had pressed her face. The blonde was a little surprised that there did not appear to be any tears, but no more surprised than she was about the fact that apparently Kahlan had chosen her. She couldn't give less of a fuck if Richard ever forgave Kahlan – Kahlan was her's now. She nearly crowed with delight, but instead she wrapped her arms around the other woman, doing her best to radiate warmth and comfort – a distinctly foreign experience.

"I'm sure he will." She knew it was a lie. Part of her was sad that the friendship she had with Richard, which had been a rock through the trauma of her flight from her sisterhood had provided was most certainly and permanently dead. Maybe the sudden rush to her head caused brain cell death or dysfunction because like magic, an apology appeared. "I'm sorry I put you in that position. I couldn't—I can't— Just the idea of someone else touching you. It kills me. I love you, and I know I don't have a right to but I do."

Warm lips moved against Cara's neck, words transmuted into kissing. Fire raced through her veins but she tamped it down. Now was not the time to throw Kahlan on the bed and savagely ravage her just to mark her territory and obliterate the memory of Richard's touch forever.

"Come on. You're tired." Carefully she steered Kahlan toward the bed. They fell asleep, Kahlan's head tucked under Cara's chin, dark and light hair intertwined.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Home, Let me come Home, Home is wherever I'm with you**

Aydindril was untouched in Kahlan's mind by Richard. He had been there so briefly, the impressions that he left didn't stick in her memory, which was a relief. They were like a half-remembered dream – far away like her days in high school or her early childhood. She could feel like she was home without being haunted by the ghost of him. There were other ghosts, though. It was a town that had been brutally treated, and it needed a strong leader to help. She almost couldn't believe that she had allowed Richard to distract her from that – her job as Mayor.

Several months had passed, and Kahlan could sit in her office and work through her paperwork without a steady stream of distraught townspeople interrupting her constantly. Which was not to say her days weren't without interruption, just of a significantly more pleasant variety. Her mind had begun to wander in the direction of such an interruption. Just the sensory memory of Cara's possessive hands made her wiggle in her chair. Cara liked to undress her, with the lights on, and watch her squirm with modesty while a blush worked its way up her neck. Cara also liked to work on Kahlan's truck in a nearly transparent white tank top with no bra underneath. She had a disconcerting habit of looking incredibly attractive while a sheen of sweat highlight the smooth contours of her muscled arms while she did yard work too. In fact, Kahlan realized with a sigh, even when Cara wasn't trying she was incredibly sensual, and sexually magnetic.

She shook her head, trying to bring herself back into the moment and focus on her paperwork. The clock on the wall ticked closer and closer toward five. Swirls of light took over her computer screen as the screen saver kicked in, hiding the spreadsheet that she had been pretending to work on.

There wasn't even a knock to warn her before the door was flung open and Cara sauntered inside. Every time she appeared it was breathtaking. Her body reacted immediately, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. Not for the first time, Kahlan was glad that Cara couldn't read her mind and guess the nearly pornographic things she had been thinking just moments before. "Oh, I didn't think your therapist appointment would be over so soon." Even to her own ears she sounded breathless and almost coy.

"I had better things to do then talk to a fat old man about why I have a perfectly normal aversion to being shot at and having any number of people try to murder me." Cara strutted across the short space between the door and Kahlan's desk.. Kahlan was absolutely certain she must practice that move in a mirror, there was no way that sort of thing came naturally – it oozed sex. She bit her lip as Cara settled herself on the corner of her desk. The view that provided of her ass and the toned expanse of her thigh was nearly too much. "I don't care if they have a special name for it, where I come from, it's called 'self preservation'."

"I think it's actually called post-traumatic stress, with an emphasis on the disorder." Horny or not, Kahlan wasn't going to let Cara get away with pretending she didn't have feelings.

"He keeps trying to prescribe pills. I think he must be getting a kickback from some sort of pharmaceutical company."

"I think he was trying to help you sleep through the night." Kahlan frowned slightly.

"I know a better way to sleep through the night. You should help me practice." Cara was fast. Very fast, which was really no surprise to Kahlan since she had at least an inkling that the other woman was some kind of super-soldier, and she had the hard muscles to prove it. Before she could blink or protest about the general inappropriateness of being straddled by your ridiculously hot girlfriend in your office chair in your _office_ where you worked as _mayor_, Cara was in her lap and tugging at the buttons of her shirt.

"Cara, you're going to be the death of me."


End file.
